Cuba authorities urged to stop harassing dead activist’s family
22 February 2011
Amnesty International has urged Cuban authorities to end the harassment of relatives of a human rights activist who died during a hunger strike last year.
Reina Luisa Tamayo, whose son Orlando Zapata Tamayo died at a Havana prison in February 2010, told Amnesty International she was arrested by state security agents who threatened to stop her and other mourners from commemorating the anniversary of Orlando’s death in church, on 23 February.
“The fact that the Cuban authorities have so far failed to initiate an investigation into Orlando’s death is outrageous and preventing his family from properly celebrating his life is a scandal,” said Javier Zuñiga, Special Advisor at Amnesty International.
Tamayo, 72, her husband and another activist, Daniel Mesa, were forcefully detained on Friday 18 February by more than a dozen local security agents as they were walking around their village in Banes, north-west Cuba. Tamayo and her husband were released 12 hours later and Mesa, two days later.
Tamayo said the agents had threatened to prevent her leaving her home and go to the cemetery where her son is buried, in breach of her human rights.
“The recent releases of activists in Cuba, who shouldn’t have been put in prison in the first place, will only be meaningful if, once all activists are released, they are able to carry out their legitimate work defending human rights without fear of reprisals,” said Javier Zuñiga.
“The harassment suffered by people like Orlando Tamayo’s relatives clearly goes to show that things still have not changed in Cuba and the authorities need to do much more to ensure human rights are a reality for all.”
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arrested in March 2003 and sentenced to three years in prison in May 2004 for “disrespect”, “public disorder” and “resistance”.
He was subsequently tried several times on further charges of “disobedience” and “disorder in a penal establishment” - the last time in May 2009 - and was serving a 36 year-sentence at the time of his death in prison.
Reina Tamayo said she intends to live in exile in the USA along with a number of her relatives and has been granted all relevant documents by the US authorities.
The Cuban government has yet to issue the necessary permits.
MADRID — Two more political prisoners from Cuba arrived in Spain on Thursday, where they accused the island's communist government of harassing the mother of a dissident who died in a hunger strike.
The two -- Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, 44, and Fabio Prieto Llorente, 47, both journalists -- arrived on separate flights accompanied by a total of 16 relatives, an AFP photographer at the airport said.
Twenty Cuban dissidents arrived in Spain last month and three more on Tuesday following their release by Havana.
One more, 61-year-old journalist Juan Adolfo Fernandez, is expected on Friday.
In a deal struck between the Roman Catholic Church and the government of President Raul Castro that was brokered by Spain, Cuba agreed to free 52 of 75 dissidents sentenced in 2003 to prison terms of up to 28 years.
The releases came after dissident hunger striker Guillermo Farinas nearly starved to death in Cuba.
Another political prisoner, Orlando Zapata, died in detention on February 23 after 85 days on hunger strike.
Herrera and Acosta charged Castro's regime had been harassing Zapata's mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, since his death.
"They won't allow her to walk to church [to a cross of Christ the King] to pray for her son," Herrera said.
"That's why we call on the world, the European Union, and the community of democratic nations to speak out against this outrage, this barbarism."
Tamayo told Spain's Europa Press news agency she had only been able to visit her son's grave four times as security services had prevented her "by force" from leaving her home.
Both the journalists also accused Havana of using the release of dissidents to hide the repression of its opponents.
"No one should hope that the Castros are going to make changes," said Herrera.
"The regime will remain the same, corrupt and military," added Prieto.
He said the release of dissidents was merely aimed "easing international pressure" on the regime.
Cuban dissidents say that even after the release of the 52, another 115 political prisoners will still be languishing behind bars in Cuba.
Mother of dead Cuban prisoner of conscience prevented from attending church
17/08/2010
Christian Solidarity Worldwide is calling on the Cuban government to allow Reina Luis Tamayo Danger, the mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo who died in Cuban prison earlier this year, to attend religious services and to cease their harassment of Tamayo Danger and her family.
Since the beginning of August, on consecutive Sundays, State Security agents and other pro-government members of the community in the town of Banes have physically blocked the road taken by Tamayo Danger on her way to church, preventing her from attending Sunday Mass and visiting the cemetery where her son is buried.
Video footage sent out of Cuba shows a line of men in uniform interlocking arms across a dirt road, standing face to face with a small group of women accompanying Tamayo Danger. The women are part of a larger movement across the island known as the Ladies in White, made up of wives and mothers of prisoners of conscience. A crowd of people chants pro-government slogans and shouts obscenities at the women who stand in front of them, unable to pass.
According to Tamayo Danger, for over five months she and her family have been subjected to acts of intimidation from government officials, including verbal abuse and threats of violence. Her weekly attendance at Mass at the La Caridad Catholic Church has been particularly targeted. She says, however, that the violence and intimidation is no longer confined to Sundays.
Tamayo Danger requested that the international media to come to Banes to cover the situation. CSW is calling on representatives of European embassies in Cuba to go to Banes to investigate these threats and show solidarity with her.
CSW’s National Director Stuart Windsor says, “No one should be subjected to these tactics of intimidation simply because they are attempting to attend a weekly religious service, a right enjoyed by religious believers across Cuba. We are calling on the Cuban government to cease its harassment of Mrs Tamayo Danger immediately and to allow her to attend Mass and visit her son’s grave without hindrance.”
For further information or to arrange interviews please contact Kiri Kankhwende, Press Officer at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on +44 (0)20 8329 0045 / +44 (0) 78 2332 9663 or email kiri@csw.org.uk.
CSW is a human rights organisation which specialises in religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all.
Notes to Editors:
1. Orlando Zapata Tamayo was one of 75 prisoners of conscience arrested and imprisoned in March 2003 in a wave of political repression now known as the Black Spring. He went on hunger strike in at the end of 2009 to protest prison conditions. He died in February 2010 after prison officials denied him water for eighteen days, leading to kidney failure, and withheld medical treatment until it was too late. There was an international outcry following his death and he has since become a symbol for dissident groups across the island.
2. Video footage of the events in Banes can be found on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Qz-OB9K94&feature=player_embedded
The footage in this link is freely available to the public. CSW does not take responsibility for the content provided therein. Any views expressed on the website do not reflect those of CSW of its staff.
Amnesty International Calls on Cuban Authorities to End the Harassment of the Mother of Deceased Prisoner of Conscience
posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2010August 17, 2010
The Cuban authorities must act to end the harassment of the mother of a prisoner of conscience who died following a hunger strike to push for the release of other prisoners, Amnesty International said today.
Reina Luisa Tamayo, whose son Orlando Zapata Tamayo died in February this year, told Amnesty International she has been repeatedly harassed by authorities and government supporters during the regular marches in memory of her son that she carries out in the town of Banes.
"Reina Luisa Tamayo is simply paying tribute to her son who died in tragic circumstances, and that must be respected by the authorities," said Kerrie Howard, Amnesty International's Americas deputy director.
Every Sunday Tamayo, who is usually accompanied by relatives and friends, walks from her home to the church of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, to attend mass and then they march to the cemetery, where Orlando is buried.
On Sunday August 15, government supporters arrived early in the morning and surrounded her house, Tamayo told Amnesty International, preventing her and her relatives and friends from marching and attending mass at the church.
Ahead of the march, Cuban security forces also allegedly detained in their homes some of the women due to attend for up to 48 hours, without any explanation for the measure.
Tamayo told Amnesty International that six loudspeakers were installed near her house and were used to shout slogans against her and the Ladies in White, an organization of female relatives of prisoners of conscience campaigning for their release.
On August 8, Tamayo was confronted by government supporters, who blocked her path and, according to her account, beat relatives and friends of the family. She said a police patrol was parked nearby watching the events, but failed to intervene.
Amnesty International has also expressed its concern at a series of recent detentions by the police of independent journalists and dissidents. "At a time when the Cuban government has begun to release prisoners of conscience, the campaign of harassment against Reina Luisa Tamayo and the arbitrary detention of journalists and dissident figures shows that the authorities are yet to make significant progress on human rights," said Howard.
Writer Luis Felipe Rojas Rozabal was detained by the police at 7 a.m. on August 16, at his home in the town of San Germán, province of Holguín.
Rozabal's family is unaware of the reasons of his arrest, but they have said they suspect this might be related to his criticism of the government. He has been arbitrarily detained on several previous occasions in similar circumstances.
Several members of the Eastern Democratic Alliance, a network of political dissident organizations, have also been detained.
Background
Orlando was one of dozens of prisoners of conscience adopted by Amnesty International in Cuba at the time. The majority were among the 75 people arrested as part of the massive March 2003 crackdown by authorities against political activists.
Currently there are at least 30 prisoners of conscience in Cuba's jails. Amnesty International calls for their immediate and unconditional release.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
(Source: Amnesty International.)
Ros-Lehtinen Condemns Cuban Dictatorship's Cowardly Attacks On Reina Luisa Tamayo
posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2010Washington, DC – Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a senior member of the Florida Congressional Delegation, issued the following statement after hearing an audio tape of Sunday’s attack on Reina Luisa Tamayo, mother of deceased political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died at the hands of the Castro regime. For the last couple of Sundays, Reina Luisa Tamayo has been verbally and physically attacked by state sponsored mobs as she tries to visit a local church to pay respects to her deceased son in her hometown of Banes, Holguin.
Ros-Lehtinen’s statement:
“The cowardly, brutal, dying and fearful dictatorship of the Castro brothers once again stoops to its usual low. Their latest attacks on Reina Luisa Tamayo, preventing this infirmed 62 year old grieving mother from attending Sunday church, is yet another example of the ruthlessness of the Castro regime.
A mob of hundreds of state sponsored thugs surrounded Reina’s home in Banes this past Sunday morning screaming vulgar and racial slurs against her and the five women and one girl who tried in vain to attend church. This grieving mother is even prevented from visiting her son’s remains in the town cemetery because the regime fears any possible outpouring of support for Cuban patriot Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died while imprisoned in Castro’s jails.
Only in a failed state such as communist Cuba would the regime send State Security and Interior Ministry forces to keep a grieving mother from properly mourning the death of her son. The international community must come to terms with the sad fact that the latest ploy by the regime of releasing political prisoners is just that, a ploy. Nothing has changed in Cuba and nothing will change as long as the Castro brothers and their feared and repressive apparatus are in control. Anyone who has any doubt need only hear or see the images from Reina’s home this past Sunday morning.”
***
PRESS RELEASE
For more information: August 16, 2010
Alex Cruz, Communications Director
Office 305-668-5994 or 202-225-3931
Cellular 202-225-8200 or 202-225-4630
Alberto de la Cruz at Babalublog reports on his phone conversation with Reina Luisa Tamayo. She sent a message to the world:
For the past two Sundays the Cuban government has not allowed me or my family and supporters to attend church or to visit the cemetery where my son, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, is buried. The government has sent people to carry out acts of repudiation. They have pushed and shoved us, beaten us. Both my legs have been injured by the physical attacks I have endured. We only want to be able to go to church and to pay our respects at the grave of my son, Orlando Zapata Tamayo. They, however, will not let us.(H/T Capitol Hill Cubans)
For five months my house has been surrounded by state security. The government has ordered people to harass and repress us. They have brought weapons with them -- clubs and knives. These people wait until uniformed security agents are watching to push and beat us with the hopes that it will curry favor for them from the government. They hope by doing the bidding of the Castro brothers, the government will overlook how they steal from their workplaces and trade on the black market. The government will not overlook their actions because it a government of assassins!
We have been beaten along with fellow members of the opposition that have stood next to me. My son has been beaten over the head and his back. But we will not give up, we will not kneel to the Castro brothers.
The news media has done nothing to help us. The Catholic Church has done nothing to help us. Cardinal Jaime Ortega has never tried to contact me and has done nothing to stop the beatings we are receiving for only wanting to to go church and visit the grave of my son.
This Sunday, at 8:30 am, I, along with my family and supporters, will once again leave the house and attempt to go to church and visit my son's grave. Whatever happens to any us, I hold the Cuban government responsible!
Amnesty International calls for urgent action to protect Reina Luisa Tamayo
posted on Thursday, August 12, 2010URGENT ACTION
MOTHER HARASSED FOR MARCHING FOR DEAD SON
The mother of a Cuban prisoner of conscience who died after hunger striking has been repeatedly harassed and intimidated in an attempt to stop her from organizing marches to commemorate her son's death. The next march is planned for 15 August.
Reina Luisa Tamayo is the mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a prisoner of conscience who died on 22 February 2010, having spent several weeks on hunger strike whilst in prison. Since her son’s death, Reina Luisa Tamayo has organized weekly marches on Sundays in the town of Barnes, Holguin Province, Cuba, to honour her son's memory.
Relatives and friends accompany Reina Luisa Tamayo on these weekly marches from her home to attend mass at the Nuestra Señora de la Caridad Church, in Barnes and from there to the cemetery where Orlando Zapata Tamayo is buried. Last Sunday, 8 August, the group reported that as soon as they tried to leave Reina Luisa Tamayo’s house to start their march, they were confronted a few metres away from the house by hundreds of government supporters who blocked their way and beat some of the participants. They were pushed back to the house and followed into the house’s garden. The participants tried twice more to leave the house and resume the march but they were again violently confronted by the government supporters, who stayed outside the house until late in the afternoon. According to Reina Luisa Tamayo, during all this time a police patrol was close to her house watching as the events unfolded and failing to intervene.
The group have reported how prior to 8 August, they have also been confronted by government supporters and state security officials who have gathered around Reina Luisa Tamayo's house and prevented them from marching, sometimes preventing them from reaching the church, the cemetery, or both. They have also reported how state security officials and police officers have set up check points on the routes to Reina Luisa Tamayo’s house on the day prior to the march to prevent people from reaching the house and joining the march.
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in Spanish or your own language:
Calling on the authorities to ensure an immediate halt to the harassment and intimidation of Reina Luisa Tamayo by government supporters, and that of her relatives and friends and any other citizens who seek to peacefully exercise their right to freedom of expression, assembly and association;
Calling on the authorities to permit Reina Luisa Tamayo and others to march peacefully as is their right on Sundays.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 22 SEPTEMBER 2010 TO:
Head of State and Government
Raúl Castro Ruz Presidente
La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +53 7 8333085 (via Foreign Ministry); +1 2127791697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: cuba@un.int (c/o Cuban Mission to UN)
Salutation: Su Excelencia/Your Excellency
Interior Minister
General Abelardo Coloma Ibarra
Ministro del Interior y Prisiones
Ministerio del Interior, Plaza de la Revolución, La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +53 7 8333085 (via Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
+1 2127791697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Salutation: Su Excelencia/Your Excellency
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
URGENT ACTION
MOTHER HARASSED FOR MARCHING FOR DEAD SON
Additional Information
Reina Luisa Tamayo is one of the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White), a group of women relatives and friends of prisoners detained during a major crackdown on government critics in March 2003. In 2003, over several days, the Cuban authorities arrested 75 men and women for their peaceful expression of critical opinions of the government. They were subjected to summary trials and were sentenced to long prison terms of up to 28 years. Amnesty International declared the 75 convicted dissidents to be prisoners of conscience, 32 of them remain in prison.
Damas de Blanco organizes peaceful weekly marches in Havana where they distribute flowers and call for the release of their relatives and friends. In March 2010 Damas de Blanco organized a daily march for a week to mark the seventh anniversary of the arrest of their relatives. On 17 of March 2010, their march was forcibly broken up by Cuban police, who briefly detained several women. Some of the women claimed that they were beaten by the police.
UA: 174/10 Index: AMR 25/012/2010 Issue Date: 11 August 2010
(Source: Amnesty International).
Marc Masferrer: Castros send goons to their hometown to attack Zapata's mother
posted on Monday, August 09, 2010The town of Banes, on the north coast of eastern Cuba, is best known as where Fidel and Raúl Castro were spawned. Before that, it was also Fulgencio Batista's hometown.More, here, at this link.
Some of that ignominy has been washed away in recent months as a current resident, Reina Luisa Tamayo, has courageously carried on the legacy left by her son, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a political prisoner who died Feb. 23 after an 86-day hunger strike.
Señora Tamayo and supporters, like their fellow Ladies In White in Havana, march each Sunday on behalf of Cuba's political prisoners, from Mass at a local church to Orlando Zapata's grave site.
And almost every Sunday, goons unleashed by Banes' bastard sons, the Castro brothers, swarm around Señora Tamayo and her supporters, tossing threats and insults and throwing punches and kicks. The greater their fear of this old woman and her friends, the louder and more dangerous they get.
Reina Luisa Tamayo, however, has remained undaunted, her undying love for her son driving her as she becomes one of the inspirational figures of the Cuban opposition.
It happened again today, as security forces and "common" prisoners brought to the scene by the authorities surrounded Tamayo's house, on the Embarcadero highway in Banes.
"They were punching us from behind, hitting and kicking us," Tamayo told Radio Martí. "My son took a tremendous blow to the head."
Tamayo called on the international community to intervene on her behalf, because "there are going to be very many dead on the Embarcadero highway."
Below, pictures of the military presence around her house.
These pictures were taken with a mobile phone on 1 August, brought to La Habana by Reina Luisa and later distributed by Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez.
Dear Sir or Madam:
Every Sunday, we receive, mostly through phone interviews broadcast by the US-based Radio Martí, the same report from Reina Luisa describing how she is beaten, insulted and how [the government directed mob] prevents her from going to the town’s church to pray for her son and the health of all Cuban political prisoners still in jail. The repressive organs of the Cuban regime also impede her to visit her son’s tomb.
It is surprising to us that despite the wide coverage dedicated to Cuban topics, your organization has not reported on this. We know of the limitations to movement within Cuba, but we also understand that any foreign reporter has the means and resources to travel to the Eastern part of the island and give an eyewitness report of what happens there, in front of Reina Luisa Tamayo’s home.
We do not wish to tell the media what they should do, but to share with you our concern for the life of a woman who has lost her son in unjust circumstances and is clamoring for the world’s help to avoid more deaths.
We, the promoters of the #OZT: I accuse the Cuban government Campaign that demands the unconditional and immediate release of all peaceful political prisoners in Cuba and the respect of all Cubans’ human rights; write to you because we know that the international press in Cuba not only bears witness to what happens there, but can also help prevent and stop harassment incidents like those suffered by the Ladies in White in March of this year.
We would also like to know if there is any kind of legal hindrance or of any other sort that prevents your reporter in La Habana from traveling to other regions of Cuba.
We thank you in advance for your reply.
Sincerely,
#OZT: I accuse the Cuban government Campaign
Yesterday, Reina Luisa Tamayo, and a group of other opposition activists were surrounded by a government-stirred mob at the residence of Marta Díaz Rendón, as stated by the former to our campaign via telephone while the events were unfolding. “We have an aggressive mob surrounding us. They want to end Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s family, but we [would first] die [being] dragged, [but] not on our knees. Down with the Castro [brothers]!”
Reina explained that the day before yesterday, the authorities had already tried to intimidate her. “Yesterday [Friday] Major Roilán [of Security of State] came to my house to threaten me [saying that] I could not come out of my house to go to church, and now, we are under siege at the house of our sister Díaz Rendón.”
“We have come in a group of five to her house so that she can come with us to church with us tomorrow [today Sunday] to participate in the Mass. We have tried to come out with her, but they are surrounding us.”
The mother of Orlando Zapata also denounced that one of her sons, named Israel, was detained, and attacked by the police. She also stated that her family is afraid of seeking medical attention because “they [the government] do not have anyone else to attack us, so now they are using healthcare personnel.”
Reina Luisa wished “success and recovery” to all the brothers who are being released from prison and to those who were in hunger strike, like Guillermo Fariñas, and reiterated her compromise with the democratic ideals for which her son died.
UPDATED: We have learned through exiled activist Katy Arboleya that Reina Luisa was prevented by the Castroite mobs from attending Mass this morning. We will continue to monitor and report on her situation.
Reina Luisa Tamayo at the Huffington Post:
Much has been said in the Cuban regime's official media about my son Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a young black man. Many lies have been told, and it has been said that my son was a criminal, and that he was not simply allowed to die. The truth is that my son was murdered. The truth is that my son was allowed to die on a hunger strike he held to demand respect for his rights, and to demand freedom for his people. Today, I would like to tell you just who Orlando Zapata Tamayo was: a defender of human rights, and my beloved son.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was born on May 15, 1967, a native of Santiago de Cuba. He spent his childhood in Santiago and Antilla in Holguin province, where he went to school through the ninth grade. He never spoke much, but he had a big heart for his family and all those who knew him, always giving the best of himself to his fellow man.
He competed in boxing at the provincial level in the 14-16 year olds division, winning first place and prizes for best match. Later, he began his working life. He earned a degree as a bricklayer with an elementary understanding of carpentry and plumbing, which allowed him to work in those areas. On several occasions working with crews in Havana, he earned the distinction of being named best worker.
Even though he would be offered a certain sum for his work before he started, when he finished the job he would be paid a lesser amount of money. Due to this kind of deceit, he dissociated himself from the only official employer, the government, and started working on his own account in order to survive. He was fined on repeated occasions for registering home addresses other than where he lived. It was through his work that he managed to he came into contact with the opposition. He founded a dissident discussion group in Havana's Central Park with activist Henry Saumell and others. He also worked on the Varela Project, which collected more than 10,000 signatures, as required by the Cuban constitution, on a citizen's initiative calling for democratic reform in Cuba. He was a member of the Republican Alternative Movement [Movimiento Alternativa Republicana] and the 30th of November Party [Partido 30 de Noviembre] which were actively engaged in a peaceful struggle against the Castro brothers' regime. As a result of this work, he was detained on several occasions.
Zapata was arrested on December 6, 2002 in Havana's Lawton neighborhood while on his way to attend a meeting with Dr. Oscar Elias Bicet at the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, and he was then imprisoned. He was released three months later, without ever being tried. When he launched a protest fast with Marta Beatriz Roque and other activists against the continued jailing of activists, among them Dr. Biscet, he was arrested in the crackdown known as the Black Spring of 2003. Regime officials tried him based on his first arrest and sentenced him to three years imprisonment for resistance, disobedience and disorderly conduct for his position of opposition to the regime.
While in prison, his resistance led to additional charges with each one adding years to his sentence. Ultimately, the three year sentence was extended to 57 years and six months in prison. He remained a resistor, eating only what his family brought him. He only accepted water in prison, sleeping on the floor with bedding from home. His path through various prisons was one of physical and emotional abuse, which left their marks on his body. He underwent surgery for an intracrinal hematoma produced by a blow delivered by convicted criminals thrown into his sealed, maximum security solitary confinement cell. The prisons he went through were: Cien y Aldaboz, Villa Marista, Quivicán, Guanajay, Taco Taco, Holguín Provincial Prison, Cuba Sí, Kilo 8, and Combinado del Este in Holguin.
In Holguin, he suffered his last beatings, which were intended to end his life, on August 29, September 24, and October 26, of 2009. To demand respect for his rights, he carried out a water-only protest fast in intervals for 18 months. He would be shaved and have his hair cut only by force. He never wore a common prisoner's uniform, the uniform of a convicted criminal. While he was in Holguin Provincial Prison, State Security video taped him often.
He was sent to Kilo 8, the maximum security prison in Camagüey, where they stole his food upon arrival in order to force him to eat the prison food. They also forced him to dress as a common prisoner, while he had previously worn white at every prison he had gone through.
Zapata began his final hunger strike in order to demand respect for his rights as a political prisoner. He spent one month and three days on the floor. He was denied water for 18 days in an attempt to break his defiance, which provoked two heart attacks while still being held at Kilo 8. Afterwards he was transferred to the Prisoners Ward at Amalia Simoni Hospital. This is when his family was able to see him briefly. They only allowed him one bottle of water, but not the one from which he wanted to drink.
He was transferred to a so-called "Intensive Care Unit" that was cobbled together on the spot exclusively for him, and where he was kept under guard by armed soldiers. This all created a delay that caused his health to worsen. He had to be transferred to the Prisoners' Hospital at Combinado del Este Prison, where his health worsened to a critical point. The authorities knew that the goal was to murder him, to eliminate him. He was then transferred to Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital where he died on February 23, 2010 at approximately 3:30 p.m.
We, Zapata's family and friends, have suffered a great deal of repression since his death. My son died for the sake of his belief in freedom. We have been attacked by groups of people organized by State Security, who want to prevent us from marching to the cemetery after leaving Mass on Sundays. My son's tomb was desecrated by them, the police.
The Castro brothers try to intimidate us, but what they don't know is that this family has never been afraid. This family has never knelt to anyone. Now, with even greater courage, dignity, and principles, we will follow the ideas and words of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who was murdered, who was tortured, and who was denied water for 18 days in order to do away with him. But nobody was ever able to subjugate my son. He never knelt before the dictatorship. He never gave in, and he preferred to die rather than to live on his knees.
This is why we say: Zapata Lives! We shout it in the streets. We shout it wherever we may be. Zapata lives on in our hearts. His example guides the Cuban people in their struggle for freedom.
The organization was established this past 27 June 2010. Its president is José Luis Ortiz Tamayo, brother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
“The [party’s] main objective is to fight for the release of political prisoners, the freedom of Cuba, to support the dissidence, and to unite [the] efforts to achieve the democratization of the country, as the main objective of the late Orlando Zapata Tamayo” stated independent journalist Caridad Caballero Batista in the Directorio’s note.
The foundation of the organization was preceded by a “strong repression.”
On 26 June, several opposition activists, including Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger, mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, were the victims of a savage “beating at the hands of [members of] the regime’s repressive forces.” The clash occurred at the entrance of Reina Luisa’s house, and several women were hurt, according to Directorio Democrático.
In the following video, you can see how Reina Luisa Tamayo and some members of her family (dressed in white) are harassed by a horde of alleged supporters of the Cuban dictatorship at their home near the Eastern Cuba town of Banes. Notice the police presence and how these women valiantly stand their ground against the insults (they are being called "vermin", and commanded to leave the country) and the aggression of the mob.
75 Ladies in White and Ariel Sigler Amaya march together in La Habana
posted on Sunday, June 20, 2010“Here are all the wives of political prisoners from [the provinces] of Pinar del Río, Matanzas, and the great majority of the ones from Oriente y Villa Clara" said Berta Soler, a leader of the group.
There were 5 children among the ladies. They are the children of political prisoners.
Seventy five of the Ladies in White in attendance, marched on Quinta Avenida [Fifth Avenue] in the Miramar neighborhood of La Habana, as they have done for the past seven years. The other five could not march due to their advanced age.
Reina Luisa Tamayo, mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo and a Lady in White herself, was at the church, and later joined the march.
Marching with the Ladies, albeit in a wheelchair to which he has been confined due to his seriously deteriorated health, was recently released political prisoner Ariel Sigler Amaya.
“The recent transfers of 12 prisoners have helped their families, but we fight for their release, for their return to their houses, to their homes, because they are innocent”, said Laura Pollán, wife of imprisoned journalist Héctor Maseda.
“We will continue the struggle until they are all released from prison” stated Pollán.
Hat tip and photos, Marc Masferrer
Radio Martí informs that Security of State agents have threatened Reina Luisa Tamayo Dánger, the mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, at her home in Banes, Holguín province, Cuba. Reina told Radio Martí that on Friday, a Security of State agent who identified himself as Major Roilán came to her house in Banes, threatened her, and told her that she had to end her weekly Sunday pilgrimages to the town’s Catholic church.
She rejected the threats and made the Cuban government responsible for anything that could happen to her and her family.
Reina also told Radio Martí that they are trying to isolate her, just as she had told us on Wednesday.
More in Spanish with audio at the link.
Reina Luisa Tamayo Dánger’s husband, José Marino Ortiz, denounced on a phone interview to Miami-based journalist Nelson Rubio the constant harassment his family suffers. Asked about his opinion on the negotiations between the regime and the Catholic Church, José Marino, stated that “the Cuban government never sympathized with the Catholic Church. It expelled 600 priests, and those left behind had to follow the governmental line.” He stated that it is “all a game”, and asked the Catholic Church to demand the final release of all political prisoners, not just The 26 [gravely ill prisoners], “by one stroke of the pen” from the government.
Marino praised the fact that Ladies in White can now march without being harassed in Havana, and wondered why Reina Luisa; however, cannot.
Further details of what happened this weekend, were offered in a phone interview by Reina Luisa herself to #OZT I accuse the Cuban government. Reina told us that on this past Sunday, that marked “the three month anniversary of the murder” of her son by the regime; she went to church, and after Mass she waited to be at least 10 to 15 meters from the temple to say “Zapata vive. Tres meses.” [Zapata lives. Three months]. They, Reina her family and another opposition activist, were immediately surrounded and harassed by government mobs all the way to her home.
They “blocked the only access point to her home, and that is why only one other opposition activist was able to get through.” They went out, and saw that “the mob had assembled at a place called La Güira” on the road to the actual town [Banes]. However, she and her companions went the other way toward the cemetery to visit Orlando’s tomb without incident.
A few hours later, an opposition activist who lives next to the family, went out to buy some food from the town. He was attacked by female members of the government mob who beat him with umbrellas, and called him, in an effort to humiliate him, “[Reina Luisa’s] slave.”
Shortly after that, the mobs retreated and some opposition leaders were able to reach the house. Last night they were able to celebrate an evening of remembrance honoring martyrs Pedro Luis Boitel, on the 38th anniversary of his death [after a 53 day long hunger strike in prison]; and Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Reina Luisa’s son, who died after an 85 day long hunger strike on 23 Februry 2010.
Catholic News Agency: Cuban government harasses mother of late Zapata Tamayo
posted on Monday, May 17, 2010In Banes, in the eastern Cuban province of Holguín, the political police have a permanent siege on Zapata Tamayo’s mother’s house, to prevent her from celebrating the memory of OZT, his example of rebelliousness against totalitarianism and his total devotion to the cause of freedom in Cuba. In the cemetery where he rests, the political police have tried to erase his name from his tombstone and they have also posted surveillance guards at the foot of a nearby pine tree to prevent people from coming close to his graveyard and to make them forget he ever existed.
But we have bad news for the Castro brothers and their sinister police: starting on the eve and throughout May 15th, we will celebrate the life of Orlando Zapata Tamayo. And we are going to do it with the same words with which his mother and the Ladies in White invoke him:
¡Zapata Vive! (Zapata is alive!) These women carry in themselves the will of many Cubans of being free.
This is an open invitation, and the meeting point is Twitter: #ZapataVive will be the hashtag. We will also use #OZT y #Cuba. Let’s make the conversation about Cuba on May 15th a conversation about Zapata Tamayo. Let’s not allow his flame to go out until the dawn of a free Cuba.
Numbers do make a difference here. If you want to join us celebrating the life of Zapata on his birthday, we invite you to link in Twitter, between the 14th and the 15th, articles, comments, drawings, songs, videos and any other material that has appeared in traditional media, blogs, Youtube, Myspace, Facebook and other social networking sites. Post what you have written and what others have written as well. And don’t forget to add #ZapataVive, #OZT and #Cuba on each tweet. Let’s welcome May 15th, Zapata Tamayo’s birthday, with a message of freedom for Cuba.
Keep us posted on anything that is published on the subject by emailing us at ozt.prensa@gmail.com. We will post updates on the evolution of the event. The goal is for the #ZapataVive hashtag to become one of the “trending topics” on Twitter on May 15th. Let our voices get to the Cubans who seek their freedom. And let them reach the ears of the tyrant. Starting on Friday, May 14th and throughout the 15th: ¡Zapata Vive! The hashtags: #ZapataVive, #OZT, #Cuba. Spread the word!
Cuban journalist, living in Bayamo
ernestomorales25@gmail.com
Originally published on May 3rd, 2010 by Claudia Cadelo at Octavo Cerco
The last images were fade-outs from a plane, a vision of an island parading along the Havana Malecon, and I noticed from that moment that my mood had changed drastically. The National Television News of Monday, March first, did it in one blow. Ten minutes before, I was living my own life and thinking of my own dead. But after seeing the helplessness in the eyes of Reina Luisa Tamayo, an elderly woman of dark skin and simple words, who from that second, I’m sure, still mourns for what a mother should never have to mourn – the death of her son – nothing could be the same as moments before.
If there is anything about the brazen hidden cameras to be grateful for – as they violated every ethical and moral precept, filming this woman during the medical consultation, showing her naïve hopes in those men in the white coats whom she asked to save her son – it is just this: it taught me to know her face. To know her features to confirm what I already knew: this poor woman can not, could never, understand the death of her son Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the prisoner of conscience who, in my sad Cuba, stopped breathing last February 23, after 86 days on a hunger strike. At most, Reina Luisa knows the pain and now, probably the hate, but not much about the ideology or politics.
And she could not understand why the battered body of her son has to be covered with earth. Because not even I, not one civilized being, proud as we are of our species, can understand the death of a 42-year-old Cuban who died gasping, his body lacerated by the force of starvation, in order to claim with an epic bravery and, why not, somewhat orthodox, what from his simplicity he considered his inalienable rights. In short, what we would call a decent prison.
This death makes us dizzy. It is disconcerting. This death that did not have to be hurts those of us who believe in the best of humanity, which is not about our ideological postures, but about our feelings.
And it leads me to question, inevitably, this Island that many inhabit with pride, others with sorrow, and others with the certainty that it all belongs to them. I think of civilized barbarity, and of how in the name of supposedly righteous causes, a Government can bring out the worst in those it governs: dehumanizing them.
Someone told me recently: we have a sick country. And I say: Yes, sick of apathy, of resentment, of degrading feelings. A country cannot be healthy where National Television shows on prime time news such ignominious material, and where after millions and millions of eyes see it, and millions of brains process it, it does not generate protests, nor even significant movements that question the event. That ask for real justifications for what is not said, for what it purposefully hidden.
I think: the author of such material, the journalist who lent her intellect to such infamy, lives in our country, certainly has a family, perhaps children. This journalist is miserably sick of lies.
Was it a repeated error, every time it was aired on several news programs, that its author was apparently not credited? Or did the same person decide, as a last minute precaution, to hide her identify behind an off-screen voice? Many identified her, assumed her well-known television presenter’s name, but she, suspiciously, preferred to hide it. I wonder how someone whose creed should be truth, someone whose watchword should be “objectivity,” can sleep at night after handling in this way a case that should provoke in all of us, at the very least, a wave of shame.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arrested during the infamous Black Spring. He did not figure among the commonly broadcast names of the 75 independent journalists imprisoned, because instead of a thinker, journalist or intellectual he worked as a humble bricklayer who engaged with frank radicalism in his labor of opposition, and who was sentenced initially for three years privation of liberty as a result of his public demonstrations against this wave of arrests in 2003.
Once behind bars, however, this sentence was increased to a staggering 25 years for disrespecting the authorities, terminology which in practice meant refusing to wear the inmate uniform and to be treated like a common prisoner. Since then, the former worker, born in Banes in the municipality of Holguín, figured as one of the recalcitrant "counterrevolutionaries," who refused to be treated as common criminal, and who maintained his intractable attitude to those who sought to bend him by force.
That was the genesis of the tragedy. Rather, its first act. The second and decisive act opened in December 2009, when Orlando Zapata formally declared a hunger strike.
What motivated this prisoner with his voluntary fast? The report on Cuban television said, coldly and contemptuously, that he wanted “a TV, a kitchen, and a telephone in his cell.” According to the words of his mother, what he fasted for was, “to have the same living conditions that Fidel Castro had when he was Fulgencio Batista’s political prisoner, the same living conditions of the five Cubans imprisoned in the United States.”
Perhaps Orland Zapata did not think that his resolution would send him headlong to death. But what I am sure of is that the authorities of Kilo 8 (the prison in Camagüey where he was being held) never imagined the stony determination of his position, even as it cost him his life.
A story that does not explain causes cannot call itself journalism. The material exhibited on our television was dedicated to “dismantling” the argument that Zapata Tamayo was not seen by doctors when his condition required it, nothing more. It was never explained to the millions of viewers how it was possible that the arrogance of a prison system would allow the progressive debilitation of a young man who was not asking for the impossible.
The question is not, “What did the Camagüey doctors do to try to restore life to a body desiccated by hunger?” We assume: a doctor who sits at the heart of the sacred should save lives, could not have done otherwise than to fight tooth and nail against a death that had already won every fight. The question is: “How is it possible that the doctors so unflinchingly ignored the claims of a prisoner whose crime was to think differently, so that from the moment he went into the hospital his deterioration made any attempt to save him futile?” Is it that Orlando Zapata Tamayo chose a slow and horrendous suicide? Is it that he didn’t love his life? Was it irresponsible, as they try to make us see on Cuban Television, that he didn’t measure the reach of his actions, that he did not feel the martyrdom of his hungry body?
I refuse to accept it. Orlando Zapata, a Cuban whom I never met, whose ideas, principles or human values I do not know, whose conduct I cannot even assess objectively due to the disinformation and manipulation to which the official press of my country condemns these issues, Orlando Zapata had the courage, which in “Cuban” translates as “he had the balls,” to live consistent with his ideas. He knew how to do what so many worn out slogans and so many phrases from the podium cannot encompass with their rhetoric: give his life for a cause.
The television report should be stored in our minds. When a person who knows how to build a better country remembers this, the example will teach us how far we can go. How far? Even to publicly showing the hidden camera films of this desperate woman, who was grateful for every word of encouragement that would give her back her faith in the life of her son, and whose words (or those they tried to make her words) would be aired without the least respect for her integrity, her rights, her pain. To present, one more time, private telephone conversations, taped in a zealous spying process too similar to the one the official Cuban press criticized George W. Bush for, with the difference that at least the intelligence service of the nefarious president hid those recordings. They did not air them on prime time television in the United States.
Can they stoop any lower? They can: behind the photo of Orlando Zapata shown on the screen, an image of an evil frown zealously chosen to present to the Cuban public, the author of the material contrasted it with one of those marches of the multitudes Cubans know so well. Those million of Havanians who slithered along the Malecon, in the visual language of this report, strongly disputed Zapata Tamayo. They disputed him, according to the exact words of that ethereal voice-over, with fists high, in response to his blackmail and provocations.
Not a single opposing opinion. Not one argument to the contrary. Not one witness to the living conditions of this prisoner of conscience and what led to his fatal protest. That is, Orlando Zapata was not a “plant” who refused to accept the status of a common criminal and demanded his rights. No. Orlando Zapata was a victim of those who infected him with this idea of rebellion, of the degenerate counterrevolutionaries who pushed him to his death. It’s that simple.
For these captors of the truth, the principle of disagreement with their ideas is a concept so vague, so lacking, that only in this way can they understand that a 42-year-old Cuban would paralyze his stomach to claim the right to be treated with respect. Only in this way: like an irresponsible person. A naïve person exploited by the real enemy
Once again, as Eduardo Galeano would say: Cuba hurts.
We grieve for those who don’t accept that things like this are possible, that deaths like this happen, that suffering like this takes place under our noses. We grieve for those who believe that instead of burying people with different opinions, now is the time to disinter their ideas and build, with all of them, the clever and the crazy, the shrewd and the obvious, a more plural and tolerant nation.
And it should pain everyone who thinks of Marti, a prisoner at sixteen, a victim of abuse and cruelty, for being a political opponent. It should pain everyone who thinks of Mandela, imprisoned for 28 colossal years for opposing the ideas of an exclusionary system. Yes, for being an opponent. It should be felt in the flesh of every decent Cuban, because one more of us, one of those born under the same sun, who built houses with his hands, who suffered shortages and laughed out loud, who drank rum once in a while, perhaps, and who dreamed of a country other than that imposed on him, who died a death that never should have been.
If our flag wasn’t sold for hard currency in this tropical Cuba, and in consequence, if each one of us would raise it somewhere in our homes, raise it to half-staff (although this was not a leader nor a famous man) it would be a just way to maintain a dignified silence before the death of this unknown man. It would be a way to preserve our last wealth: human dignity.
And against that, no ill-fated reporting can do anything.
Note from Claudia Cadelo: I read this article for the first time along with the interview that Ernesto conducted with Yoani and Reinaldo. I had never met him but his texts make me feel like I’ve known him my whole life.
