[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 157 (Thursday, December 8, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              FREEDOM FOR ANTONIO AUGUSTO VILLAREAL ACOSTA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, December 8, 2005

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Antonio Augusto Villareal Acosta, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Villareal Acosta is an economist and bookkeeper under a regime 
that bans truth and facts. As a student of truth, Mr. Villareal Acosta 
quickly joined the courageous opposition to demand human rights, 
democracy, and freedom from tyranny. Because he believes in freedom and 
because he actively and peacefully advocates for liberty, Mr. Villareal 
Acosta has been targeted by the despotic regime.
  In March 2003, as part of the tyrant's heinous island wide crackdown 
on peaceful, prodemocracy activists, Mr. Villareal Acosta was arrested 
by the regime. In a sham trial, he was sentenced to 15 years in the 
totalitarian gulag.
  Mr. Villareal Acosta is languishing in the revolting, hellish gulag. 
However, being confined in these inhuman conditions has not stopped him 
from continuing to demand freedom and justice for the people of Cuba 
and his fellow political prisoners. Amnesty International reports that 
Mr. Villareal Acosta has participated in hunger strikes while 
imprisoned in Castro's dungeon. He has undertaken these strikes to 
bring attention to the repulsive squalor of the gulag, the lack of 
medical attention, and the barbaric punishment cells; all of his 
actions have been in defiance of the machinery of repression that has 
unjustly confined him in these repugnant conditions.
  Mr. Speaker, it remains categorically unacceptable that men and women 
who demand freedom from tyranny are locked in the dungeons of 
tyrannical monsters. Here, under the dome that represents freedom and 
democracy, we must continue to demand the liberation of all who suffer 
in the darkness of totalitarianism.
  Let me be clear, the willful ignorance of Cuba's suffering under the 
Castro regime by much of the world's press and most of the 
international community, amounts to abetting the Castro dictatorship. 
Let us never forget, and always support, those who are struggling to 
liberate their people from the grip of tyranny. My Colleagues, we must 
demand the immediate and unconditional release of Antonio Augusto 
Villareal Acosta and every prisoner of conscience locked in Castro's 
totalitarian gulag.

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