[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 62 (Thursday, May 6, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E772]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   FREEDOM FOR JORGE OLIVERA CASTILLO

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 6, 2004

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Jorge Olivera Castillo, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Olivera Castillo worked for 10 years as a national television 
editor. After being confronted on a daily basis with the blatantly 
false propaganda mandated by the tyrannical regime, he left his job to 
join other pro-democracy activists working for freedom and human rights 
for every Cuban citizen. Using his skills as a journalist, Mr. Olivera 
Castillo began to report on the brutal policies of the totalitarian 
regime. He later became the director of the Havana Press agency. 
Starting in 2001, Mr. Olivera Castillo's articles concerning the state 
of Cuba under totalitarian rule were published in Spain.
  Because of Mr. Olivera Castillo's unrelenting commitment to writing 
the truth about the totalitarian regime, he has been constantly 
harassed by the dictator's thugs. According to Amnesty International, 
Mr. Olivera Castillo has been expelled from his house, arrested, and 
accused of ``counterrevolutionary'' activities by the tyrant Castro. 
During the brutal March 2003 crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy 
activists and independent journalists, Mr. Olivera Castillo was 
arrested. In a sham trial, Mr. Olivera Castillo was sentenced to 18 
years in the totalitarian gulag because of his commitment to truth over 
propaganda.
  Mr. Olivera Castillo is currently languishing in an infernal cell in 
the totalitarian gulag. Reporters Without Borders reports that Mr. 
Olivera Castillo is suffering from numerous medical problems, is 
confined with common prisoners, and is being forced to drink seriously 
polluted water. These depraved conditions are truly appalling. It is a 
crime of the highest order that people who work for freedom are 
imprisoned in these nightmarish conditions.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Olivera Castillo is suffering in a grotesque, 
inhumane, totalitarian gulag because he believes in freedom. My 
colleagues, we can no longer allow peaceful prodemocracy activists to 
languish in the depraved prisons of tyrants. We must demand immediate 
freedom for Jorge Olivera Castillo and every prisoner of conscience in 
totalitarian Cuba.

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