Re: Cuba sentences four dissidents to prison for government protests - Dan Christensen aka DCPROOF again exposed as the liar he is

On 3/06/2011 16:30, CubaFAQ wrote:
On Jun 3, 4:13 am, PL<p...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jun 3, 5:34 am, CubaFAQ<cuba...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

See: "US restrictions on political leaflets -- cannot advocate 'disloyalty to or overthrow' of US government" at https://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.cuba/msg/f8dde61645c6e019...

See Dan trying to lie his way out of human rights
repression:

nip)

as usual desperate Dan Christensen is reduced to propaganda "drama".
These local bylaws are no national law and violate the 1st US
amendment.

These are laws in at least two US municipalities a(snip)

so no national law as I said Dan Christensen and you can' even prove they were ever applied

That is why Dan does not provide and case law of where
this was applied.


Very evasive,(snip)

Nope.
There are lots of "dead letter" statutes on local books.
http://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=49751

Furthermore: the leaflets handed out by the dissident Cubans were in
no way "advocating disloyalty" of the "overthrow" of a government.

Prove it.
(snip)

You made the claim they were advocating disloyalty and overthrow of the government Dan Christensen aka DCPROOF.
Thanks for showing you can't prove any of that.
In fact you snipped the HRW report that stated the contrary

"Four people were sentenced on May 31, 2011, in Havana for distributing
pamphlets criticizing Raúl and Fidel Castro"


Cuba: Stop Imprisoning Peaceful Dissidents
Six Sentenced in Summary Trials for Exercising Basic Rights
June 1, 2011

With this new round of prosecutions, the Castro government is sending
a clear message to dissidents that the status quo has not changed in
Cuba. Publicly criticizing the government can still earn you a harsh
prison sentence.
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch

(Washington, DC) - The conviction of six dissidents in summary trials
for doing no more than exercising their fundamental rights highlights
the continuing abuse of the criminal justice system to repress dissent
in Cuba, Human Rights Watch said today. Raúl Castro's government
should immediately release the prisoners, who were given sentences
ranging from two to five years in prison, and cease all politically
motivated repression against Cubans who exercise their fundamental
freedoms, said Human Rights Watch.

Four people were sentenced on May 31, 2011, in Havana for distributing
pamphlets criticizing Raúl and Fidel Castro, and two human rights
defenders in Holguín were sentenced on May 24, charged with "insulting
national symbols" and "disorder" for public acts that they denied had
taken place.

"With this new round of prosecutions, the Castro government is sending
a clear message to dissidents that the status quo has not changed in
Cuba," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights
Watch. "Publicly criticizing the government can still earn you a harsh
prison sentence."

Luis Enrique Labrador, 33; David Piloto, 40; Walfrido Rodríguez, 42;
and Yordani Martínez, 23, were sentenced in Havana on May 31 on
charges of contempt and public disorder. An official document
addressed by the state prosecutor to the Criminal Court of Havana, a
copy of which was obtained by Human Rights Watch, said the four were
detained on January 14, when they went to Havana's Revolutionary
Square and threw leaflets into the air with slogans such as "Down with
the Castros."

When agents of the National Revolutionary Police arrived at the scene,
the four men sat down on the ground, an act the prosecutor deemed "a
defiant and provocative attitude...that interrupted the traffic flow."
Martínez was sentenced to three years in prison, while the other three
were each sentenced to five years, according to their families and
human rights defenders in Cuba.

Family members told Human Rights Watch that state security agents had
visited their homes the day before the trial, warning relatives that
if they "created a scene" and called attention to the hearing, the
detainees would be left in pretrial detention indefinitely. One man's
mother said she was fired in April on the grounds that she was "the
mother of a counterrevolutionary." The families also told Human Rights
Watch that Martínez and Piloto went on hunger strike in May in Valle
Grande prison to demand they be put on trial. In response, they later
told their families, they were handcuffed and beaten by a prison
official.

In a taped interview with a Cuban human rights defender, Juan Carlos
Gonzalez Leiva, which was later replayed for Human Rights Watch,
Rodríguez called the trial a "a mockery." He said the judge simply
rubber-stamped the prosecutor's recommended punishment, ignoring the
defendants' arguments in their defense. Elizardo Sanchez, the director
of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation,
an independent human rights group not recognized by the Cuban
government, told Human Rights Watch that state security agents
surrounded the local courthouse where the trial took place, preventing
human rights defenders and other members of the public from attending.

On May 24, Marcos Maikel Lima Cruz, 33, and Antonio Michel Lima Cruz,
28, brothers who were members of a human rights group in Holguín
called Pedro Luis Boitel - were sentenced to three and two years in
prison respectively in a closed, summary trial. Their father, the
independent journalist Marcos Antonio Lima Dalmau, said the two were
arrested on December 25, 2010. Lima Dalmau, who was allowed to attend
his sons' trial, said they were accused of insulting national symbols
and causing public disorder for allegedly dancing naked in front of
their house, and spitting, urinating, and stepping on a Cuban flag,
which both denied.

Human Rights Watch believes that the charges were fabricated to
prosecute the brothers in retaliation for their human rights work.
Lima Dalmau said that one of the witnesses who testified in their
trial - a neighbor - said he had accompanied police when they
inspected the brothers' home, and had seen the flag hanging undamaged
on a wall.

Cuba's laws empower the state to criminalize virtually all forms of
dissent, and grant officials extraordinary authority to penalize
people who try to exercise their basic rights. The Cuban Criminal Code
penalizes anyone who "threatens, libels or slanders, defames, affronts
or in any other way insults or offends, with the spoken word or in
writing, the dignity or decorum of an authority, public functionary,
or his agents or auxiliaries." The violations are punishable by one to
three years in prison, if directed at high ranking officials. Such
laws violate the right to freedom of expression recognized in article
19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights -
signed by Cuba in 2008.

"The dissidents were prosecuted on the basis of their political
beliefs, and because they dared to exercise rights that all Cubans
should enjoy," Vivanco said. "They should never have even been tried,
let alone convicted."

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/06/01/cuba-stop-imprisoning-peaceful-dissidents
.

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