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Man calls his Cuba-travel
hearing a 'waste'
By Paul Bonner. Durham
Herald Sun, NC. pbonner@heraldsun.com.
June 22, 2005.
DURHAM -- Outwardly, a federal hearing
Wednesday against David Heslop over his
2000 trip to Cuba was uneventful.
The administrative law judge didn't set
an amount for a fine that the Durham man
and his lawyer sought to reduce from its
maximum of $7,500; a judgment is expected
in about two weeks.
In fact, Heslop said by phone as he returned
to Durham from Washington, the proceedings
seemed like a lot of bother over his simple
desire to travel abroad.
"It was an absolute waste," he
said.
Not that it wasn't interesting, he said,
as government lawyers sought to portray
him as defiant of the U.S. ban on tourist
travel to Cuba. They cited news stories
in which Heslop had volunteered the information
that he'd been to Cuba twice before the
one after which he was nabbed.
In opposition, Heslop's lawyer, Shayana
Kadidal of the Washington-based Center for
Constitutional Rights, sought to highlight
inconsistencies in how the government penalizes
people for Cuba-travel violations. Heslop
did not testify.
The ban is part of the U.S. embargo of
Cuba, in place since the 1960s to punish
strongman Fidel Castro and his communist
regime. It forbids Americans from spending
money there, including travel expenses,
except for a few special purposes, including
working government officials and journalists
on assignment. Some other visitors can obtain
a license to go there legally, including
students studying abroad and humanitarian
or religious groups.
Heslop went there as a tourist, however,
and not out of any affinity for Castro or
communism, he said last week.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has
represented hundreds of people charged with
violating the ban. Its Cuba Travel Project
criticizes the ban as an infringement of
freedom to travel, which the center says
is a basic constitutional liberty.
Kadidal argued in Wednesday's hearing that
Heslop's fine could be limited to the amount
he spent there, estimated at $500. A dollar-for-dollar
reckoning is applied to businesses in trade
violations, Heslop said. Some travelers,
such as Cuban-Americans visiting family
there more frequently than allowed, receive
only a warning, he said.
"They don't really have a formula
for how they go about arriving at a fine,"
he said.
On Tuesday, Heslop visited Rep. David Price
and staff members of North Carolina's two
senators in Washington.
The senators' aides were attentive but
noncommittal about ending the travel ban,
he said.
"I had naively hoped that Sen. Burr
or Dole would stick their heads in the door,
but they didn't," he said.
Price, on the other hand, has co-sponsored
legislation in the House that would lift
the travel restrictions.
The government lawyers were courteous,
making the government's hard-line stance
seem all the more incongruous, Heslop said.
"I'm still sort of absorbing it all,"
he said.
© 2005 The Durham Herald
Company
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