HAVANA, January (Tania Díaz Castro, UPECI) - Yesterday the TV
newscast showed an anonymous Afghani man being kicked and beaten by a group of
his countrymen.
"This is barbaric," said my neighbor, who was watching with me.
"That very same thing happened to my children, my father, and myself,
right here in Cuba," I said.
She looked at me incredulously.
It was in October, 1988, at the entrance to the "Combinado del Este"
prison, in Havana. It was visiting day for political prisoners. At 10:00 a.m. my
family and I waited to go in.
Initially, an officer, a major, came out and said I could not go in,
notwithstanding that I had with me the required telegram authorizing the visit.
Then, the suspiciously cohesive mob demanded that I leave "immediately."
Finally, the group, apparently civilians like ourselves, surged toward my
25-year-old son, my 20-year-old daughter-in-law, my 70-year-old father, and
myself. I was 49 then. We were knocked to the ground, beaten and kicked for
several minutes, until a commanding voice I heard very clearly put a stop to it.
The reason? I was the founding general secretary of the Cuban Party for
Human Rights, and we had recently demanded, through the international press,
that a plebiscite be held in Cuba.
A few hours after the beating, we were brought before a court, accused of
causing a public disturbance, and of "offenses against heroes and martyrs."
There were no family, no friends, no defense lawyers present.
My son was sentenced to three months in jail, my daughter-in-law to one
month, and I got one year.
That night, I was in a cell with a woman who, years before, had killed her
6-year-old daughter. For the first time, I was afraid.
Versión
original en español
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