[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 29 (Thursday, February 15, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E363]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FREEDOM FOR RAFAEL BENITEZ CHUI

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 15, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Rafael Benitez Chui, a political prisoner in totalitarian 
Cuba.
  Mr. Rafael Benitez Chui is a father of three and a peaceful pro-
democracy activist in totalitarian Cuba. Mr. Benitez Chui knows with 
complete certainty that Cuba must be liberated from the nightmare that 
is the Castro regime in order for his children and for all the children 
of Cuba to be able to live in freedom, with the ability to exercise 
their most basic human rights. Because of his belief in freedom, 
democracy and a better future for his children, Mr. Benitez Chui became 
a target for the tyrant's machinery of repression.
  As a result of the dictator's condemnable March 2003 crackdown on 
peaceful pro-democracy activists, Mr. Benitez Chui, along with his wife 
Migdalia Hernandez Enamorado, went to a police unit in Guantanamo to 
protest the arrest of two of their fellow pro-democracy leaders, Manuel 
Ubals and Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta. Unfortunately, on March 19, 2003 
shortly after arriving at the police unit, dictatorship thugs arrested 
both Mr. Benitez Chui and his wife while they peacefully protested the 
unjust treatment of their fellow human rights activists.
  Unfortunately, their peaceful protest was justification enough for 
the communist regime to incarcerate Mr. Benitez. On September 18, 2003, 
after 7 months confinement to a hellish existence in the totalitarian 
gulag, 7 months after his initial detention, Mr. Benitez Chui was 
finally, in a sham trial, ``sentenced'' to 4 years for the alleged 
crime of ``contempt''.
  Since his incarceration, Mr. Benitez Chui has endured an inhuman 
horror in the dictatorship's gulags. In 2004, he was severely beaten by 
regime thugs and robbed of his few personal belongings. When Mr. 
Benitez Chui attempted to defend himself against the brutal assault, he 
was placed in a so-called ``punishment cell''. These ``punishment 
cells'' are usually located in the basements of prisons, with 
continuous dark conditions, no available water, and a hole in the 
ground for a toilet.
  Despite nearly 4 years of brutal, life threatening conditions and 
continued psychological torture, Mr. Benitez Chui has never wavered in 
his commitment to the freedom of all the Cuban people. He has never 
lost his hope that one day his three children will live in a democratic 
Cuba free of the murderous totalitarian regime that has oppressed Cuba 
for almost half a century. Mr. Benitez is one of the many heroes of the 
Cuban pro-democracy movement who are locked up in the dungeons of the 
dictatorship for believing in a better life for the Cuban people, all 
of whom are trapped in the horror of the brutal tyranny.
  Madam Speaker, Mr. Benitez Chui is representative of the best of the 
Cuban people, their dignity and their thirst for freedom and democracy. 
It is unconscionable, in the 21st century, for the world to stand by in 
silence while valiant men and women are caged by a demented and vile 
oppressor simply for peacefully expressing opinions. We must demand the 
immediate freedom of Mr. Benitez Chui and all the prisoners of 
conscience in totalitarian Cuba.

                          ____________________