As we informed last week, Ariel Sigler Amaya arrives in Miami tomorrow (today) 28 July 2010.

A humanitarian fund account has been set-up for him at BB&T Bank of Miami to help with his healthcare costs.

Ariel Sigler -Humanitarian Fund
Acct # 0000148280827

Raw unedited footage. Jorge Salcedo, #OZT: I accuse the Cuban government Campaign coordinator talks to Carmen María Rodríguez [in Spanish] for Radio Martí

Former Cuban political prisoner Ariel Sigler Amaya will fly to Miami on Wednesday, July 28, to receive needed medical care, according to Radio Martí, citing an AFP report.

AP informs from La Habana:

HAVANA — U.S. diplomats in Havana have told relatives of jailed Cuban dissidents that it will be more difficult for them to apply for asylum in America if they first accept a Church-brokered deal to trade jail for exile in Spain.

The meetings, confirmed by the family members of six imprisoned dissidents, come at a delicate time and could complicate releases of some 52 activists, journalists and opposition leaders arrested in a 2003 crackdown.

Under a deal brokered by Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega earlier this month, Cuba has already freed 11 political prisoners and flown them to Madrid. Nine others have accepted the offer and are expected to arrive in coming days.

The rest of the jailed dissidents have either refused to go, or have not yet been contacted by Roman Catholic church officials. The church has said exile in Spain is an "option," but has not specified what will happen to those who refuse to leave the country.

The family members of several dissidents who have not yet accepted Spanish asylum met Tuesday with officials at the U.S. Interests Section, which Washington maintains in Havana instead of an embassy. Other family members are expected to visit the Interests Section in coming days.

After the meetings, the relatives told The Associated Press they were informed they would not be allowed to apply for asylum in the United States from Spain, but could petition for residence like any other would-be immigrant.

"We came here thinking they would give us some option (of applying for asylum from Spain), but they won't," said Sofia Garcia, whose husband, Jose Miguel Martinez, has been serving a 13-year sentence for treason.

She said she was told that if the family goes to Spain they would have to apply for residence in the United States through regular channels, a process that can take years and usually requires a sponsor.

Teresita Galvan, whose brother Miguel Galvan is serving a 26-year term, said she left the meeting under the impression that by accepting the deal to go to Spain, her family would give up its right to later claim asylum in the United States.

It means a stark choice for some of the dissidents, many of whom have family in the United States: Stay in Cuba and try to win U.S. asylum, or leave immediately for Spain and take themselves out of consideration.

Gloria Berbena, a spokeswoman at the Interests Section, confirmed that individual meetings were taking place to answer questions the family members might have about seeking asylum.

Berbena said the Cubans were being informed that any asylum applications from Spain would be handled differently from those made inside Cuba.

"The process is different depending on where you apply from," she said.

Cubans applying for asylum in the United States can claim that they face persecution or danger if they remain in the country, something that would be harder to do if they have already fled to a friendly country.

When asked if American diplomats were advising the prisoners not to accept Spanish asylum, Berbena said only: "We believe that Cubans should be free to make their own decisions."

Agence France Press reports:

HAVANA — The US diplomatic mission in Cuba has convened a meeting here with relatives of political prisoners who are refusing an offer to leave and emigrate to Spain, wives of the jailed dissidents told AFP.

Representatives of the Roman Catholic church and the Spanish embassy were also to attend the 1:00 pm (1700 GMT) meeting with officials from US consular services and the mission's refugee section, they said.

"All we know is that they have invited a representative of each prisoner who has not been contacted by the church or who have refused to travel to Spain," said Laura Pollan, the head of the Ladies in White, a group of wives of political prisoners.

So far, 11 political prisoners have emigrated to Spain and another nine were expected to arrive in Madrid this week as part of Cuba's biggest release of political prisoners in over a decade.

The State Department confirmed reports that Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega was in the U.S. just days before he announced a deal with Raúl Castro to release political prisoners.

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega visited the United States in June, just days before he announced that the Raúl Castro government had agreed to free 52 political prisoners, the U.S. State Department confirmed Friday.

"Cardinal Ortega visited the United States in June,'' said Virginia Staab, a Western Hemisphere Affairs spokesperson. But she declined comment on reports that Ortega met with two senior U.S. officials in Washington during the visit and informed them -- with Cuba's approval -- of his talks with Castro on the prisoner release.

"What we find important here is not who knew what when but that several individuals who were imprisoned simply due to their personal beliefs have been released and that many more (more than 100) have not yet been identified for release,'' she said.

"We continue to urge the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, not just those arrested during the Black Spring crackdown in 2003.''

TOP OFFICIALS

The Wall Street Journal reported on June 28 that Ortega had met with Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs committee. Neither have confirmed the report.
Berman has endorsed a bill before Congress that would lift all U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba -and unleash a gusher of U.S. tourism dollars for the economically strapped island.

Officials in Washington told El Nuevo Herald that Ortega was in Washington on June 22 as part of a low-profile U.S. visit. He also spent time in New York City, apparently meeting with U.S. Catholic church officials.

Ortega's director of communications, Orlando Marquez, confirmed to the website Progreso Weekly on June 30 that the cardinal had visited Washington for meetings arranged by the U.S. Conference of Bishops.

MONTHS OF TALKS

Ortega's talks with Castro began in March, after pro-government mobs harassed the Ladies in White during their marches, following a mass in a Havana church to demand the release of relatives jailed since the 2003 crackdown.

It was only last week that Castro agreed that over the next three to four months he would free the last 52 dissidents still in jail from the 2003 roundup, which sentenced 75 opposition figures to lengthy prison terms.

Two dozen others were previously released.

New York City, July 14, 2010—PEN American Center welcomed the news that Cuban journalists Normando Hernández González, Dr. José Luis García Paneque, and Léster Luis González Pentón, all high PEN priority cases who had been imprisoned since a March 2003 crackdown on dissent, have arrived safely in Madrid. García and González arrived with their families and four other released journalists on Tuesday, and Hernández arrived on a flight from Havana Wednesday with his family and another freed colleague.

“This really is a remarkable, hopeful moment for all who believe in the power of individual commitment and international solidarity to effect change,” said Larry Siems, Director of PEN American Center’s Freedom to Write and International Programs. “PEN has been inspired by the courage and endurance of these men and their families, and we have been inspired by the determination of PEN Members and journalists and human rights advocates around the world to see them free.”

The eight writers were released as part of a deal brokered by the Catholic Church and the Spanish Foreign Ministry, under which the Cuban government has agreed to release all remaining 52 dissidents imprisoned in the March 2003 “Black Spring” crackdown, when 75 journalists and activists were arrested. Those released and flown to Spain reportedly have the option of staying or traveling to the United States or Chile, where they have also been offered asylum.

José Luis García Paneque, a journalist with the Agencia Libertad press agency, librarian at the Carlos J. Finlay Library, and plastic surgeon, was arrested on March 18, 2003, and sentenced to 24 years in prison. He suffered numerous ailments while serving his sentence at Las Mangas Prison, Granma, and lost a considerable amount of weight. His wife was forced to flee Cuba and seek asylum in the United States, where she currently resides.

Léster Luis González Pentón, an independent journalist, was the youngest to be imprisoned during Black Spring, and was serving a 20-year sentence at the Prisión Penitencial “La Pendiente,” in Santa Clara in the state of Villa Clara when the orders for his release came through. His wife, mother, stepfather, and two sisters joined him in Madrid, according to reports.

Normando Hernández Gonzalez, who arrived in Madrid at approximately 1:30 p.m. local time with his wife and daughter, was serving a 25-year sentence for reporting on the conditions of state-run services in Cuba and for criticizing the government’s management of issues such as tourism, agriculture, fishing, and cultural affairs. Held in deplorable prison conditions, he was hospitalized repeatedly over the past seven years. As his health declined, PEN mounted an increasingly urgent campaign on his behalf, awarding Hernández the 2007 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award and pressing the Cuban government to provide him adequate medical care and grant him a humanitarian release.

“In the more than seven years since the ‘Black Spring’ crackdown, PEN Members have not only consistently pressed for the release of the imprisoned dissidents, we have also taken a personal interest in the plights of these imprisoned men, developing relationships with their families and sending the men cards, books, and even towels and toothbrushes in prison,” said Anna Kushner, PEN American Center Member and Freedom to Write Case Advocate. “Through conversations with their mothers and wives, we have received updates about the deteriorating state of the men’s health and the psychological strain of physical separation on all members of their families. It is an enormous relief to see these brave men free and reunited with their families, and with access to the medical attention at last that they so greatly need.”

“We hope that the Cuban government will follow up on these releases by allowing space for public dissent on the island, so that all writers and peaceful activists in Cuba are able to express themselves freely going forward without fear of repercussions,” she concluded.

PEN American Center is the largest of the 145 centers of International PEN, the world’s oldest human rights organization and the oldest international literary organization. The Freedom to Write Program of PEN American Center works to protect the freedom of the written word wherever it is imperiled. It defends writers and journalists from all over the world who are imprisoned, threatened, persecuted, or attacked in the course of carrying out their profession. For more information on PEN’s work, please visit www.pen.org.

New York City, July 11, 2010—PEN American Center President Kwame Anthony Appiah* hailed the news that journalist Normando Hernández González was freed from prison yesterday morning in Cuba, calling the release “a very hopeful sign” and “an enormous relief to PEN and to all those around the world who have followed his ordeal.”

Hernández was arrested on March 18, 2003, one of 75 writers and activists jailed in a major crackdown on dissent, and sentenced to 25 years in prison for reporting on the conditions of state-run services in Cuba and for criticizing the government’s management of issues such as tourism, agriculture, fishing, and cultural affairs. Held in deplorable prison conditions, he was hospitalized repeatedly over the past seven years. As his health declined, PEN mounted an increasingly urgent campaign on his behalf, awarding Hernández the 2007 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award and pressing the Cuban government to provide him adequate medical care and grant him a humanitarian release.

Hernández’s release yesterday is part of an announced agreement between Cuban authorities and the Catholic Church to free 52 political prisoners, all jailed since the March 2003 crackdown. He will reportedly fly to Spain with his wife and daughter on Tuesday.

“We are enormously relieved that Normando Hernandez Gonzalez is free and reunited with his family, and that he will soon find refuge and the medical treatment he so desperately needs in Spain,” Appiah said. “After a seven-year ordeal that undermined his health and brought endless anguish to his family, he deserves this respite. We salute his endurance and courage, and the endurance and courage of all those who have been jailed in Cuba in violation of their right to freedom of expression. We will be working to ensure that they, too, are released.”

PEN American Center is the largest of the 145 centers of International PEN, the world’s oldest human rights organization and the oldest international literary organization. The Freedom to Write Program of PEN American Center works to protect the freedom of the written word wherever it is imperiled. It defends writers and journalists from all over the world who are imprisoned, threatened, persecuted, or attacked in the course of carrying out their profession. For more information on PEN’s work, please visit www.pen.org.

Cuba has pledged to let 52 of its prisoners of conscience go. We hope their release happens, and soon. But there should be no illusions that this gesture augurs fundamental political change on the island that the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raúl, have ruled with an iron fist since 1959. The Castro regime has a long history of tactical human rights concessions -- with the goal of buying time for the regime rather than reforming it. This release would appear to fit the pattern.

Always impoverished and unfree, revolutionary Cuba is in extra-bad shape now. Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the usually discreet archbishop of Havana, recently warned of "a difficult situation" that calls for "quick" changes by the government lest "impatience and ill will" spread. The state-run economy is reeling: Tourism and mineral exports are down, foreign debt is up, and Venezuela is decreasingly able to help because of its own colossal mismanagement. Meanwhile, Cuba's dissidents are gaining in daring and prestige -domestically and internationally. The death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a 75-day hunger strike, as well as the attacks of government-backed mobs on peaceful demonstrations by wives and mothers of political prisoners, earned global condemnation and set back Spain's efforts to relax the European Union's policy linking economic aid with human rights progress. Dissident Guillermo Farinas is near death on a hunger strike of his own, demanding freedom for 25 political prisoners who are sick.

The regime could ill afford that embarrassment. So the promised release is a victory for Mr. Farinas. And it's no accident that it was coordinated with the Spanish government -or that it came a week after the House Agriculture Committee had approved lifting the ban on U.S. tourism to the island and easing U.S. food sales. Raúl Castro, who took over day-to-day control from his ailing brother four years ago, undoubtedly hopes to encourage these developments, which promise to relieve his cash crunch.

How should the United States respond? As suggested by the fact that cash-only food exports from the United States make this country Cuba's fifth-largest trading partner, "embargo" is already a misnomer to describe the main U.S. policy approach. In fact, along with Venezuelan petroleum and tourism, cash remittances from Cuban Americans, which President Obama already has eased, constitute one of Cuba's economic pillars. We don't generally approve of restrictions on where Americans may travel. But the Cuba "ban" already includes large exceptions for Cuban Americans, trade delegations and educational missions. Neither those visits nor the influx of Canadians and Europeans have had the effect of liberalizing the regime -though they have brought in hard currency.

The 52 inmates represent fewer than one-third of Cuba's 167 political prisoners, according to democracy advocate Freedom House. Among prisoners notably not mentioned for release on Wednesday was Alan Gross of Potomac, an Agency for International Development contractor imprisoned in Cuba since December for the crime of distributing cellphones and laptops in Cuba's tiny Jewish community. And the first five prisoners to be freed reportedly are going to be forced into exile as a condition of their release. Mr. Obama has wisely linked major changes in U.S. sanctions to significant movement toward democracy and freedom by Havana. That condition is still far from met.

Via Marc Masferrer

The U.S. Interest Section in Havana has granted former Cuban political prisoner Ariel Sigler Amaya a visa to travel to the United States to received needed medical care, according to Diario de Cuba, citing a Radio Martí report.

Sigler's body was ravaged during his more than seven years of unjust imprisonment in the Castro gulag. His legs are paralyzed, and in the week since his release his family has witnessed how sick Sigler is.

"Ariel continues to be in critical condition," said his brother, Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya. Juan said Ariel has suffered vomiting, diarrhea, fainting spells, fatigue and cold sweats.

As for the visa, it is only for Ariel, meaning he would have to travel alone, although he does have a brother, Miguel, who lives in Miami.

But before Ariel can get on a plane, the Cuban government will have to grant him an exit [permit] which is never a sure thing.

Associated Press reports:

HAVANA — The U.S. government and a top Cuban human rights activist on Wednesday urged the island's leaders to release jailed political prisoners, not just transfer them to facilities nearer to their homes.

On Tuesday, at least six political prisoners were moved to jails closer to their homes under a deal with the Roman Catholic Church to improve prison conditions.

Dissident leaders have said the agreement worked out between the government and the church includes an understanding that some of the 26 ailing political prisoners would be freed, but church officials have said only that the government would provide better access to medical care.

"We continue to hope that prisoners of conscience will be released, rather than just relocated, as soon as possible," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters at a briefing in Washington.

In Cuba, human rights leader Elizardo Sanchez told The Associated Press the transfers "don't satisfy our hopes, nor do they satisfy the hopes of the international community, which is seeking the prisoners' unconditional release."

Sanchez, who heads the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said he hopes to hear word on more transfers soon.

Bertha Soler, the wife of prisoner Angel Moya and one of the leaders of the Ladies in White, a group of wives and mothers of 75 people arrested in a sweeping 2003 crackdown, hopes the prison transfers are a signal that ailing prisoners will be released.

"They started with these six men, but we hope soon to get word of the release of those who are most sick," she said.

Human rights groups say Cuba is holding some 200 prisoners of conscience, including 53 still in jail from the 2003 arrests. The six prisoners moved Tuesday were all sent to jail in 2003 on charges of treason and sentenced to terms between 20 and 25 years.

The wife of a seventh prisoner said Tuesday that her husband was part of the prison transfer, but as of Wednesday there was no confirmation he was being moved.

The agreement also calls for Cuba to provide medical treatment for ailing prisoners, though there has been no word on that starting.

Juan Tamayo with The Miami Herald Reports:

"Raul Castro's talks with the Catholic church on political prisoners have sparked hopes, skepticism and assertions he's taking a risk by recognizing the church as a mediator in Cuban affairs.

The meetings with Cardinal Jaime Ortega are the first time in memory the communist government has negotiated with a national and independent organization like the Cuban church, in an island where authorities at least try to control virtually all activity.

They also represent Castro's most important political shift since he succeeded his ailing brother Fidel two years ago, a change that has given added weight to a church tightly limited throughout most of the last five decades.

While the local church has long decried the country's many problems, ‘what is new is the government's readiness to publicly recognize the Cuban catholic church as a middleman for resolving key issues,’ Havana dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe wrote in a column Monday.

Fidel Castro freed 3,600 political prisoners after 1978 negotiations with exiles, and about 300 dissidents and common criminals after Pope John Paul II's 1998 visit to Cuba. He also released a few to visitors like The Rev. Jesse Jackson and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

Now his brother's meetings with Ortega have raised hopes for an improvement in Cuba's human rights record, as well as complaints the cardinal is being manipulated by Raul Castro to give a propaganda boost to what may be meager changes on the political prisoners.

Castro has promised to move some political prisoners in poor health to hospitals, move other jailed dissidents to institutions closer to their homes and eventually released some of Cuba's estimated 190 prisoners of conscience.

Some analysts are cautioning, however, that Castro is taking a risk that his talks with Ortega may embolden dissidents, average Cubans and even government officials critical of his slow pace in adopting desperately needed economic reforms.

‘The government is tacitly recognizing with this gesture that it will definitively accept the risks of thinking differently,'' said Julio Hernandez, a Miami supporter of dissident Oswaldo Pay's Christian Liberation Movement.

‘This means the church has won a big space of trust,’ added Hernandez. ‘The opposition and the dissidence now must be sensitive to that and adopt a path for peaceful proposals.’

‘When the authorities recognize any sort of independent source of power, they are admitting a weakness,’ said a Havana author who asked to remain anonymous to avoid possible retaliations for his comment.

Phil Peters, a Cuba analyst at the Lexington Institute think tank in suburban Washington, noted that Havana in the past has gone over the heads of the local church officials and negotiated directly with the Vatican on issues such as permissions to open new seminaries.

The Castro-Ortega talks, he added, ‘mark the government accepting the church as a part of civil society ... I don't particularly see any risk (for Castro) in it, but it is opening up a new space for political discussions on topics that were not open before.’

Retired CIA Cuba expert Brian Latell noted that the church-state talks come at a time when Castro faces a crushing economic crisis as well as a wave of international condemnations of his human rights record.

They include the Feb. 22 death of jailed dissident Orlando Zapata after a lengthy hunger strike and a crackdown on the Ladies in White protesters earlier this year.

‘This represents a reflection of how much pressure they (the government) are feeling for the human rights, and pressures from a whole array of domestic problems,’ Latell said. ‘They're hoping the cardinal can help to alleviate some of those pressures.’

But he added that he did not foresee any risk to Raul Castro because Ortega was unlikely to push too hard during the conversations with Castro. ‘I don't see him turning the screws hard on Raul.’

Espinosa Chepe, one of the 75 dissidents jailed in the 2003 roundup known as the Black Spring but freed for health reasons, said Castro's readiness to ease conditions for political prisoners could help improve Cuba's relations with Washington and the European Union.

‘It's clear that President (Barack) Obama favors better relations with Cuba ... but he has been blocked by the lack of reciprocity,’ he wrote. If some political prisoners are freed, ‘that could make it easier for the administration to take additional steps.’

In Washington, a State Department spokesperson said, ‘We've seen the optimist prognosis (for the political prisoners) and are looking forward to seeing what concrete steps the Cuban government will take. We have urged the Cuban government before to release its prisoners of conscience.’

The Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas, which favors easing U.S. sanctions on Cuba, issued a statement saying that the Castro-Ortega talks were ‘a real lesson for U.S. policy makers. Talking to the Cubans, not using sanctions ... is the most effective way to achieve progress.’

Oscar Peua, director of the Miami-based Cuban Commission for Human Rights, complained in a blog post that Raul Castro had ‘jumped over the heads of the dissidence’ in order to negotiate with Ortega.

‘But since the key issue is the release of all political prisoners, we do not hold back in being grateful’ Peua added, even though it does not ‘resolve the sad reality of misery and lack of freedom that Cubans suffer for more than half a century.'"