[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 19 (Friday, February 18, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E294-E295]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FREEDOM FOR CLARO SANCHEZ ALTARRIBA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 17, 2005

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Claro Sanchez Altarriba, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Sanchez Altarriba is a member of the Movement of Cuban Young 
People for Democracy. He knows with certainty that Cuba needs to be 
liberated from the nightmare that is the Castro regime. Through 
peaceful activity, Mr. Sanchez Altarriba has been a courageous voice 
against the totalitarian regime and their continued acts of tyranny and 
terrorism.
  According to Amnesty International, Mr. Sanchez Altarriba has 
suffered harassment for

[[Page E295]]

his activities, including being detained in the grotesque gulag and 
fined in October, 2002. Despite the continued threat of brutal 
retaliation for his peaceful activities, Mr. Sanchez Altarriba 
continued to believe in, and advocate for, freedom for the people of 
Cuba. Unfortunately, as part of the tyrant's heinous, March 2003, 
island wide crackdown on peaceful pro democracy advocates, Mr. Sanchez 
Altarriba was arrested by the dictatorship. In a sham trial, he was 
sentenced to 15 years in the totalitarian gulag.
  Mr. Sanchez Altarriba is currently languishing in an inhuman gulag 
because of his belief in democracy. According to a letter written by 
fellow prisoner of conscience Lester Gonzalez Penton and published by 
M.A.R. por Cuba:

       A cement wall is all that separates both jails, but that 
     one has a tougher regime than this one, several guards 
     hitting defenseless people inside the jails using ``marabu'' 
     sticks. That is the reason why many prisoners suffer from 
     aches and sicknesses behind bars, worsened by lack of medical 
     care, this being the reason for self-inflicted wounds as a 
     way to get care. Thousands of mosquitoes, rats, crawl around 
     as in their own home, with the worst hygiene conditions. 
     Eight of us brothers in the cause were removed from the 
     cells. There only remains Claro Sanchez Altarriba, from 
     Santiago de Cuba.

  Mr. Speaker, it is unconscionable that human beings are locked in 
this barbarously inhuman gulag because they believe that all men and 
women have a right to freedom and democratic government. While the 
entire world sits by and ignores the suffering of the Cuban people, 
brave men and women like Claro Sanchez Altarriba represent the best of 
mankind. My Colleagues, we must demand freedom and human rights for all 
people, especially those who live under the darkness of totalitarian 
regimes. We must demand immediate and unconditional freedom for Claro 
Sanchez Altarriba and every prisoner of conscience in totalitarian 
Cuba.

                          ____________________