[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 96 (Friday, July 15, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1496]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FREEDOM FOR ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ RAGA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 14, 2005

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Alejandro Gonzalez Raga, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Gonzalez Raga is an independent journalist and a contributor to 
the Camaguey Press Agency. As an independent journalist in a 
totalitarian Cuba, Mr. Gonzalez Raga's truthful articles have helped 
the world to learn the facts about the nightmare that is the Castro 
regime. Because of his belief in factual reporting, Mr. Gonzalez Raga 
relentlessly chronicled the atrocities committed by Castro's machinery 
of repression. I remind my colleagues that, under Castro's totalitarian 
regime, any freedom of the press, any effort to display the atrocities 
of the regime under the spotlight of truth, is met with swift and 
violent repression.
  In March, 2003, Mr. Gonzalez Raga was arrested as part of the 
dictatorship's heinous crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy activists. 
According to Reporters Without Borders, as part of his sham trial, Mr. 
Gonzalez Raga was accused of ``cooperating with the foreign press,'' 
and of ``systematically endangering territorial integrity'' by writing 
reports on subjects considered ``very sensitive'' by the dictatorship 
such as ``shortages due to the economic crisis, relations with other 
countries, TV programs, the education budget.'' He was sentenced to 14 
years in Castro's dungeons for these ``crimes.''
  Let me be very clear, Mr. Gonzalez Raga is currently languishing in 
the depraved conditions of the totalitarian gulag for his truthful 
articles. The U.S. State Department describes the conditions in the 
gulag as, ``harsh and life threatening.'' The State Department also 
reports that police and prison officials beat, neglect, isolate, and 
deny medical treatment to detainees and prisoners. It is a crime of the 
highest order that people are imprisoned in these nightmarish 
conditions simply for reporting the facts.
  Mr. Speaker, it is as inconceivable as it is unacceptable that, while 
the world stands by in silence and acquiescence, independent 
journalists who write the truth about totalitarian regimes are 
systematically tortured. My Colleagues, we must demand the immediate 
and unconditional release of Alejandro Gonzalez Raga and every 
political prisoner in totalitarian Cuba.

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