[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 33 (Tuesday, February 27, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FREEDOM FOR RAMON VELAZQUEZ TORANZO

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 27, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Ramon Velazquez Toranzo, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Velazquez is a pro-democracy activist and independent journalist 
for Libertad, a small independent news agency founded by Jose Luis 
Garcia Paneque, a political prisoner jailed during the condemnable 
March 2003 ``Black Spring'' crackdown. His peaceful activities and 
truthful articles have helped expose the nightmarish reality that is 
the Castro regime. Unfortunately, for this very reason he has been 
targeted by the tyrant's machinery of repression, as part of its effort 
to silence the brave men and women of Cuba's pro-democracy movement.
  On December 10, 2006, International Human Rights Day, Mr. Velazquez 
Toranzo, began a march for Cuban Dignity in Eastern Cuba at the shrine 
of Our Lady of Charity, Cuba's patron saint, demanding freedom for all 
Cuban political prisoners, respect for human rights, and the cessation 
of repression against peaceful pro-democracy activists. Mr. Velazquez 
Toranzo, who was marching with his wife, Barbara Gonzalez Cruz, and his 
daughter, Rufina Velazquez Gonzalez, intended to travel 950 kilometers 
by foot in hope of ending their march for freedom in Havana.
  On their journey, Mr. Velazquez Toranzo, his family and other 
marchers were detained twice in Ciego de Avila and Camaguey, Cuba, for 
peacefully advocating for the most basic freedoms for the Cuban people. 
Despite being detained, nearly being run over twice by State Security 
Thugs, and knowing full well the brutal consequences that await those 
who speak the truth under the nightmare that is the Castro tyranny, 
they continued their peaceful march for human rights and dignity.
  On January 23, 2007, 18 days after beginning his peaceful march for 
dignity, Mr. Velazquez Toranzo and his family were arrested for a third 
time in the city of Ciego de Avila. His wife and daughter were released 
but Mr. Velazquez Toranzo was held at a police station and then 
transferred to the ``El Tipico'' provincial prison. And there, after 
months of harassment by State Security thugs, Mr. Velazquez Toranzo was 
``sentenced'' to suffer 3 years of horror in the squalor of a subhuman 
gulag for his supposed crime, ``anti-social conduct.''
  Madam Speaker, Mr. Velazquez Toranzo is languishing in an infernal 
gulag just 90 miles from our shores. 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 
totalitarianism are jailed and tortured simply for exposing truth. We 
must demand immediate freedom for Ramon Velazquez Toranzo and all 
political prisoners in totalitarian Cuba.

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