[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 158 (Tuesday, November 4, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2220]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              FREEDOM FOR HECTOR FERNANDO MASEDA GUTIERREZ

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 4, 2003

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Hector Fernando Maseda Gutierrez, a prisoner of conscience 
in totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Maseda, age 60, is an engineer and physicist by profession. He 
studied the logic and reason behind how machines work, how nature 
operates. He also realized that Castro's repressive regime constitutes 
a nightmare for the Cuban people.
  Mr. Maseda joined pro-democracy groups that work to obtain basic 
human rights for the people of Cuba. He eventually became a member of 
the Liberal Democratic Cuban Party and the director of the Liberal 
Studies Center. As Mr. Maseda became more active within the movement, 
he began to chronicle the savage practices of the regime for 
independent newspapers and websites. Unfortunately, not all of these 
articles reached the outside world, among the articles confiscated by 
the political police were: ``The forced workers of Cuba'' and ``Havana: 
the capital of sexual tourism.''
  On March 18, 2003, Mr. Maseda was arrested and his typewriter, a fax 
machine, books, and his journalistic writings were confiscated. In a 
sham trial, he was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in the Cuban 
gulag for writing articles ``which twist the society and reality of 
Cuba'' and for ``maintaining relations with Florida International 
University.''
  Mr. Maseda currently languishes in the Cuban totalitarian gulag. He 
has been muted and gagged for writing about the systematic abuses of 
human rights that occur under Castro's totalitarian rule. Mr. Speaker, 
the reality of Castro's repressive regime continues to be that men and 
women who write the truth are locked in the Cuban gulag while their 
oppressor remains in power.
  My colleagues, we must fight for freedom whenever and wherever human 
beings are shackled by totalitarian dictators. We must demand the 
immediate release of Hector Fernando Maseda Gutierrez.

                          ____________________