[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 10 (Thursday, January 18, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FREEDOM FOR RAYMUNDO PERDIGON BRITO

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 18, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Raymundo Perdigon Brito, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Perdigon Brito is an independent journalist in Cuba who is 
striving to create a society that tolerates human rights, freedom, and 
democracy. He has been a peaceful supporter of bringing the most 
fundamental of human rights to a people shackled by a tyrant's brutal 
machinery of repression. Unfortunately, because of his unwavering 
support of freedom for the people of Cuba Mr. Perdigon Brito has been 
targeted by the dictatorship.
  In November of 2006, Mr. Perdigonn, his sister Ana Margarita Perdigon 
and several other journalists launched the Yayabo Press news agency. On 
November 29, 2006, just 12 days after its launch, Mr. Perdigon Brito 
was arrested by State Security thugs and told to cease his journalistic 
activities or that he would be sent to prison. Mr. Perdigon Brito was 
always aware of the risks he was taking as a journalist and he was well 
aware of his many colleagues serving long prison terms in Castro's 
hellish gulags, yet rather than allow his voice to be silenced, he 
preferred to fight for the cause of freedom and democracy on that 
enslaved island.
  On December 5, 2006, Mr. Perdigon Brito was ``sentenced'' to 4 years 
in the inhuman squalor of Castro's gulags on charges that he posed a 
``pre-criminal danger to society''. A charge often used to detain pro-
democracy activists, even when they have committed no offense, simply 
because the regime regards them a potential threat to its grotesquely 
brutal and repressive totalitarian control.
  In Mr. Perdigon's absence, his sister, Ana Margarita Perdigon, 
replaced him as Editor of Yayabo Press. This development did not pass 
unchecked or unnoticed within the inner circles of the regime's 
henchmen. According to a dissident journalist who spoke to Reporters 
Without Borders, ``The political police knew this and did everything to 
ensure the news agency is disbanded as soon as possible''.
  On the morning of December 5, 2006, as Mr. Perdigon Brito's relatives 
were leaving the courthouse in the central province of Sancti Spiritus, 
Cuba, nearly 100 regime thugs attacked them viciously. This barbarous 
and vile hate crime was carried out with such regimented violence that 
Mr. Perdigon Brito's father was hospitalized due to serious injuries 
sustained during the attack.
  Madam Speaker, it is repulsive that only 90 miles from our shore, 
brave souls like that of Mr. Perdigon are locked in dungeons because 
they too believe in the freedoms we hold sacred to our way of life. My 
colleagues, let us remember those whose suffer under the totalitarian 
nightmare that is the Castro regime. Let us demand the immediate 
release of Raymundo Perdigon Brito and every prisoner of conscience in 
the dungeons of totalitarian despots.

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