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HAVANA, December 5 (Reinaldo Cosano Alen / www.cubanet.org) - Officials of
the Pedernales prison located in Holguin province, along with agents of the
political police, continue to mistreat the blind activist Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Leiva, who has been imprisoned since March 4, 2002 without yet having been
brought to trial.
Gonzalez's mother was stopped by the warden of the prison named Saguo and
another official whose last name is Urgelles. They demanded that she turn over a
container of clear broth that she prepares for her son each day which she has
been allowed to bring to Gonzalez in prison since he has been carrying out a
liquids-only fast for over a month in protest over the arbitrary confinement to
which he has been subjected.
According to the officials, they were going to turn the food over to
Gonzalez. They also asked the woman to tell them what she makes the broth with.
The blind activist's mother refused, telling the officials she would not betray
her son.
The news was confirmed by Gonzalez's wife, Maritza Calderon, who added that
the activist, upon learning what happended to his mother, said: "I believe
they want to fortify my nourishment or slip in some subtance to alter my nerves
and blood pressure for the worse. Moreover, they insist that I drink milk and
malta. This is so I will quit fasting".
Calderon pointed out that Gonzalez has not been allowed to use a Braille
typewriter,
because of which he has to write using a piece of lead type and a punch with
nearly no point, which involves a lot of sacrifice on his part to carry out the
operation.
"When the political police searched our home, they stole his tape
recorder. They haven't returned it and the officials say they won't because he
used it to do nverviews with dissidents. They are some swine! I had to buy him
another which they did allow in, so he can listen to his cassettes with
recordings of biblical passages. There is a lot of ignorance about the lives of
the blind. For a blind person it is essential to take notes with a tape
recorder. His jailers must know this. All of these are subtle ways of torturing
him."
Mrs. Calderon revealed that the authorities allowed Gonzalez to be baptized
as was his wish. "They took him to a nearby dam called Mayabe. Pastor
Eduardo Ray of the Eastern Baptist Convention baptized him by immersion, as is
their custom. The pastor was nervous. It appears he feared some future
repression for the Christian ministering to Juan Carlos, but he told us firmly:
"I cannot allow him not to be baptized". I discovered that the
government's agents were filming everything with a camera hidden in a car. They
didn't want me to know. But God always gives an eye to the blind! This time that
eye was me. Poor Juan Carlos, he does not know of many things against him.
What's more, he is so thin and so undernourished," his wife said.
According to what Calderon exposed, the blind activist has now been confined
in a windowless cell that receives no sunlight.
The organization Women Against Repression, among others, tried to call the
attention of the heads of state meeting at the 12th Iberoamerican Summit in the
Dominican Republic about Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva's case and the cases of
others imprisoned for political reasons.
Versión
original en español
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