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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HAVANA 014841 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE DEPT FOR WHA/CCA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/21/2016 
TAGS: PHUM KDEM SOCI CU
SUBJECT: CUBA HUMAN RIGHTS ROUNDUP JULY 21, 2016 
 
 
HAVANA 00014841  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Robert I. Blau for Reason 1.4(d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary. Within a 24-hour period, Cuban authorities 
arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to four years 
dissident Alexander Santos Hernandez for "dangerousness." 
Another dissident, Camilo Cairo Falcon, was sentenced to one 
year of correctional work for "public disorder," following 
his participation in a protest.  Guillermo Farinas stretched 
his hunger strike to 171 days, inspiring other political 
prisoners to launch hunger strikes of their own.  Farinas' 
girlfriend was subjected to an "act of repudiation," as were 
the wife of political prisoner Ricardo Santiago Medina and 
activist Felix Bonne.  Bonne was also detained for four hours 
by State Security and told that if Farinas dies, it will be 
the dissidents' fault.  Numerous prisoners were transferred 
from Havana to outlying prisons, and there was speculation 
that the GOC might launch a new wave of arrests ahead of 
September's summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.  Cubans in 
Geneva took steps to help the "Ladies in White" be nominated 
for a Nobel Peace Prize, but other women activists in Cuba 
pushed back against this idea.  The GOC confiscated thousands 
of euros sent to an independent Cuban labor union by a Dutch 
Christian organization.  End Summary. 
 
HOLGUIN DISSIDENT GETS FOUR YEARS 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) On July 4, a court in the Holguin city of Gibara 
convicted Alexander Santos Hernandez, eastern provinces 
coordinator of the Cuban Liberal Movement (MLC), of 
"dangerousness" and sentenced him to four years in prison. 
MLC President Leon Padron Azcuy told us July 20 that Santos, 
30, was only guilty of angering the Cuban Government by 
celebrating the MLC's fourth anniversary.  Padron added that 
on June 30, Santos was attacked outside his home by Communist 
militants, one of whom kicked him in the mouth and caused a 
wound that required three stitches to close.  In a separate 
case, a court in Santiago de Las Vegas, Havana Province, 
convicted dissident Camilo Cairo Falcon July 12 of public 
disorder and sentenced him to one year of correctional work. 
Cairo Falcon was savagely beaten on July 13, 2005 by 
Communist militants as he and other dissidents marked the 
11th anniversary of the Cuban regime's sinking of the "13 de 
Marzo" tugboat. 
 
MORE HUNGER STRIKES 
------------------- 
 
¶3. (C) As dissident journalist Guillermo Farinas continued 
his hunger strike for island-wide Internet access, several 
other political prisoners were carrying out hunger strikes of 
their own.  Oscar Biscet, held at Havana's Combinado del Este 
prison, launched a liquids-only hunger strike on July 13 but 
ended it one week later, according to his wife, Elsa Morejon. 
 Martha Beatriz Roque, leader of the Association to Promote 
Civil Society (APSC), told us that APSC executive Rene Gomez 
Manzano launched a total hunger strike July 13 at Taco Taco 
prison in Pinar del Rio.  Roque quoted Gomez's brother as 
saying July 18 that Gomez had lost between 15 and 20 pounds. 
Two other political prisoners - Orlando Zapata Tamayo and 
Rene de Jesus Guerra - also started hunger strikes on July 
¶13.  (Other inmates showed solidarity in other ways.  Ricardo 
Santiago Medina, a diabetic, was unable to forgo food but 
wore his prison uniform backward, his wife told us.)  Gomez, 
held without formal charges for more than one year, launched 
his strike as a protest against the lack of charges and to 
demonstrate support for Farinas, a fellow APSC member. 
 
FARINAS "NOT SO GOOD" 
--------------------- 
 
¶4. (C) Farinas, for his part, told us by phone July 20 that 
he was battling a fever brought on by a staph infection, and 
that his overall health was "not so good."  His hunger strike 
reached 171 days on July 21.  Farinas was said to have 
ordered his IV tube disconnected on July 13, but he made 
clear that he continued to receive IV fluids.  Speaking in a 
strong, clear voice, Farinas said that earlier in the day, 
doctors repositioned the catheter from his arm to his neck 
because of inflammation of a vein.  He is demanding that the 
staff at his Santa Clara hospital move him to a room with a 
window, saying that if the demand is not met he will return 
home to die.  Poloff started to congratulate Farinas for 
winning a human rights prize from the German city of Weimar, 
but the line suddenly went dead.  Farinas' girlfriend Noelia 
Pedraza, who was present when the call was placed, said 
phone-call cutoffs were a favorite tactic of State Security. 
 
ACTS OF REPUDIATION CONTINUE 
 
HAVANA 00014841  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
---------------------------- 
 
¶5. (C) Pedraza said that on July 12 in Santa Clara, she was 
subjected to an "act of repudiation."  She said State 
Security officers visited her third-floor apartment around 11 
am and told her she was not allowed to leave home that day. 
Pedraza, defiant, left shortly after their departure, and 
moments later was grabbed in the street by "three large men 
whose fingernails dug into my skin."  (She showed us an 
abrasion on her arm.)  Pedraza, head of a dissident women's 
group in Santa Clara, said she was taken to a factory where 
50 or 60 people chanted insults at her, among them "black 
worm."  (Note: Pedraza, who is Afro-Cuban, said the chanters 
were of various races.  End note.)  Another act of 
repudiation occurred on July 18 in Havana, aimed at Katia 
Martin, the wife of Santiago Medina.  Around 20 people spent 
the entire day outside the entrance to her Havana apartment 
building, where they unfurled a poster of Fidel Castro, 
chanted that Martin is a "mercenary" and 
"counter-revolutionary," and refused to let her or her 
three-year-old twin daughters leave. 
 
BONNE TARGETED 
-------------- 
 
¶6. (C) Felix Bonne of the APSC was the target of a July 16 
act of repudiation outside his Havana house.  Bonne told us 
he was relaxing at home on a Saturday morning when three 
buses full of people arrived.  The participants - "party 
members," said Bonne -- unloaded an enormous tank of soda, in 
an unsuccessful effort to attract neighbors.  They then sang 
the national anthem and gave speeches condemning 
counter-revolutionaries.  They left a short while later, but 
then State Security officers arrived, identified themselves 
and drove Bonne off to a safe house, where he was detained 
for four hours.  "They said that if Farinas dies, it will be 
APSC's fault: 'You could stop this.'  I said, 'You could stop 
this by offering Internet access'." 
 
SPACE BEING CREATED IN HAVANA PRISONS 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) USINT received information from multiple sources that 
prisoners, both common and political, have been transferred 
from Havana jails to elsewhere in the country.  Gerardo 
Sanchez, of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and 
National Reconciliation, told us June 20 that prisons in the 
central cities of Santa Clara and Sancti Spiritus were 
receiving large numbers of inmates from Havana.  He 
acknowledged that rumors are circulating that the GOC will 
launch a wave of arrests - of dissidents or young people who 
hang out in the streets -- ahead of September's summit of the 
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Havana. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Sanchez said the GOC remains terrified of 
spontaneous protests in the densely populated capital, and 
relayed a story of what had happened several days earlier 
near his house.  A problem with the city's water-delivery 
system left a housing complex without water for several days. 
 Finally, a female resident who had had enough stood in front 
of the complex and, in a loud voice, complained that that the 
problem was unacceptable, and that the residents should walk 
to a nearby National Assembly office to complain.  A crowd of 
20 or so people gathered but did not make a protest walk. 
Water was flowing the next day. 
 
"LADIES IN WHITE" BACKERS URGE NOBEL NOMINATION... 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶9. (C) Cuban activists in Switzerland have launched a 
signature drive to nominate the "Ladies in White" - relatives 
of political prisoners - for the Nobel Peace Prize.  The 
Cuban Community Cultural Association informed the Ladies (aka 
"Damas") of their effort, which has included the operation of 
a kiosk in the heart of Geneva, complete with posters of 
marching Damas.  The group said that in just one day it 
received more than 300 signatures from Europeans and North 
and South Americans.  The group said it hoped that similar 
actions would be taken in Miami, Madrid and elsewhere, 
leading to an "avalanche" of petitions reaching the Nobel 
Prize Institute. 
 
... BUT DETRACTORS OBJECT 
------------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) Leading Ladies Laura Pollan and Miriam Leyva were 
delighted with the signature drive (and with Human Rights 
First's decision to award the group its annual human rights 
prize).  But they told us July 20 that other women activists 
 
HAVANA 00014841  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
planned to urge the Nobel Institute to honor Cuban political 
prisoners, rather than the Ladies in White.  Pollan said the 
key figure opposed to a Dama nomination is Marcela Sanchez, 
the sister of activists Gerardo and Elizardo Sanchez and 
member of a women's group that was active eight years before 
the Ladies came onto the scene. 
 
GOC CONFISCATES DONATION TO LABOR UNION 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶11. (C) An outlawed labor union, the Unitary Council of Cuban 
Workers (CUTC), received a large donation from a Dutch 
Christian organization but then saw the money confiscated by 
the GOC, according to independent journalist Aimee Cabrera. 
Cabrera told us July 21 that in late May, "economic police" 
of State Security visited the home of CUTC Secretary General 
Maybel Padilla Perez.  They produced a warrant, searched the 
home, and found and confiscated "thousands of Euros" sent to 
support the CUTC's activities.  Padilla was not arrested, 
Cabrera said. 
BLAU