[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 117 (Friday, September 24, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FREEDOM FOR MIJAIL BARZAGA LUGO

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 23, 2004

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker. I rise today to 
speak about Mijail Barzaga Lugo, a political prisoner in totalitarian 
Cuba.
  Mr. Barzaga Lugo is an independent journalist in totalitarian Cuba. 
He believes in writing and publishing the truth, including about the 
nightmare that is the Castro regime. In his quest to disseminate the 
facts about the politics of repression practiced by the tyrant, Mr. 
Barzaga Lugo has written for various publications, including Cubanet. 
However, the dictatorship mandates propaganda and the tyrant's thugs 
arrest and imprison the brave independent journalists who peacefully 
publish the truth about the decrepit regime.
  In March 2003, as part of Castro's brutal crackdown on peaceful pro-
democracy activists, Mr. Barzaga Lugo was arrested. In the sham trial 
that followed, he was sentenced to 15 years in the abhorrent 
totalitarian gulag.
  According to Amnesty International, the sham trial verdict read, in 
part, ``Mijail Barzaga Lugo, in 2002, wrote, as an independent 
journalist, in different websites like Cubanet, Cubaliberal, and 
Payolibre, different articles of a subversive and counterrevolutionary 
type.'' Let me be clear, this sham verdict only confirms that Mr. 
Barzaga Lugo is languishing in the infernal gulag because he heroically 
wrote the truth about the totalitarian dictatorship.
  Mr. Speaker, it is unconscionable that anyone, anywhere, is 
imprisoned in sub-human gulags simply for their belief in truth, 
freedom and democracy. At the dawn of the 21st century, mankind must no 
longer tolerate prisoners of conscience in any form, in any place, in 
any country. My Colleagues, we must demand the immediate release of 
Mijail Barzaga Lugo and every prisoner of conscience in totalitarian 
Cuba.

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