The White House has released a list of Cuban political dissidents attending a closed meeting with President Barack Obama Tuesday morning, many who have been arrested multiple times shortly before and during the Obamas’ visit, and many who have had harsh words for his “normalization” plan for Cuba.
It is an image instantly etched into the fabric of American history: President Barack Obama, flanked by an assortment of American aides and Cuban communist henchmen under the gray skies of Havana and the black shadow of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, one
Following a last minute meet and greet in Peoria, Arizona, 2016 Republican presidential contender Sen. Ted Cruz told reporters that President Obama’s visit to the communist dictatorship of Cuba that day was “a sad day in American history” and that
Cuba’s communist dictatorship has extended seven dissidents a one-time offer of a round trip abroad, as an apparent concession in light of President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to the island. The dissidents, many in their seventies, say they doubt the good intentions of the government, accusing the Castro regime of trying to divide the dissident community by offering arbitrary benefits.
The Cuban dissident community has reacted with alarm and dismay at the news that President Obama will visit the island in March, calling the move “an error” that will likely bring pro-democracy activists “a lot of collateral damage.”
Cuban anti-communist dissidents have denounced communist agents – many, they say, Cuban soldiers disguised as civilians – for attacking the headquarters of the Ladies in White group, setting a fire in front of the building, and burning copies of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The pastor of an underground Evangelical church in Camagüey, Cuba, has denounced the communist government for leveling the building in which he holds religious services as a warning to others that openly practicing Christianity on the island will result in government persecution.
One year ago today, President Barack Obama announced a radical change in U.S. policy towards the rogue communist government of Cuba, insisting that funneling new money to the Castro regime would empower “democracy and human rights” n the island. Today, the failure of President Obama’s diplomacy is abundantly clear, as Cuba’s political detention rates skyrocket and thousands more risk their lives to reach the United States before the Castros are emboldened even more.
A rally calling for the liberation of democracy activists arrested during Pope Francis’ visit to the island resulted in more than 300 Cuban freedom fighters arrested this weekend and the destruction and vandalism of multiple offices of the anti-communist Cuban Patriotic Union.
The non-government organization Amnesty International issued an urgent call for the international community to pressure the communist Cuban government to release Danilo Maldonado Machado, an artist known as “El Sexto” who has spent ten months in prison for painting the names “Fidel” and “Raúl” on two pigs.
24 members of the Cuban Ladies in White dissident group have finally been freed after their arrest to prevent them from attending Pope Francis’s mass in Havana on Sunday. The women claim to have been beaten, “dragged by the hair,” and subject to verbal obscenities.
The Cuban government placed up to 20 women under house arrest for planning to attend Pope Francis’ Mass in Havana on Sunday, while at least two others were dragged away and arrested at the event for approaching the Pope while shouting the word “freedom.”
The Cuban government’s now-ritual weekly arrests of pro-democracy dissidents continued on the last Sunday before Pope Francis lands on the Caribbean island, with more than 50 Catholic protesters arrested after attending weekly Mass.
Two of Cuba’s most prominent anti-communist leaders refused to meet with American Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit to Havana last weekend, condemning the Obama administration for “caving” to Castro regime demands and meeting only privately for a social event with the dissidents.
Pope Francis, who was revealed as a major collaborator in the dialogues that have led to President Obama yielding major concessions to the communist regime of Raúl Castro in Cuba last December, responded to a question requesting comment on that nation’s human rights crisis by stating that, in some European countries, religious insignia is banned in public places.
A Catholic church in the central Cuban city of Cienfuegos has banned female relatives of political prisoners from attending mass unless they no longer wear white, a color associated with political imprisonment in the nation. The slight to families of the abused follows the bewildering remark from Archbishop of Havana Jaime Ortega that Cuba no longer has prisoners of conscience.
Cuba’s Catholic churches have become battlegrounds against pro-democratic movements, as the Ladies in White, a dissident group composed of mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of political prisoners, insist on practicing their religion publicly. This has resulted in a larger number of arrests every week for the transgression.
Newly released statistics show that the communist government of Raúl Castro in Havana has exponentially increased the number of political arrests, beatings, and detentions since President Barack Obama announced that a White House concessions package would be afforded to the regime.
