[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 139 (Wednesday, September 19, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1928]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               FREEDOM FOR LAZARO ALEJANDRO GARCIA FARAH

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 19, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Lazaro Alejandro Garcia Farah, a prisoner of conscience in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Garcia Farah is a pro-democracy activist currently imprisoned in 
the tyrant's gulag because of his belief in freedom, democracy, and 
human rights. Unfortunately, because Mr. Garcia Farah has been a 
supporter of the cause of bringing liberty to an island shackled by a 
tyrant's brutal machinery of repression, and has attempted to shed 
light on the vicious crimes committed against the Cuban people, he has 
been persecuted by the totalitarian regime.
  Mr. Garcia Farah's aspirations for freedom and a better future were 
cut short when he and others attempted to divert a boat, the 
``Baragua'', in an attempt to escape the suffocating grasp of the 
maniacal regime that maintains Cuba enchained. On August 4, 1994, Mr. 
Garcia Farah was arrested and in a sham trial ``sentenced'' to 25 years 
confinement in the infernal totalitarian dungeons on charges of 
``piracy'' and attempting to exit the country without ``proper 
permission''.
  In 1998, Pope John Paul II visited Cuba and brought with him a list 
of political prisoners for which he asked clemency. The petition was 
ignored. Mr. Garcia Farah, whose name was on the list, denounced and 
protested the manner in which the totalitarian regime ignored the 
Pope's petition. The regime's thugs immediately placed Mr. Garcia Farah 
into solitary confinement in an attempt to silence his calls for 
justice.
  Mr. Garcia Farah is in constant danger of being placed in solitary 
confinement while in the gulag, yet he rejects allowing himself to be 
silenced. In 2000 he refused to participate in political 
``indoctrination'' classes and was consequently denied visitation 
rights from November 2000 until February 2001. More recently, in a 
communication with the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights, Mr. Garcia 
Farah denounced the horrific conditions to which political prisoners 
are subjected and explained that prisoners are given drinking water 
infested with parasites and filthy residues and are incessantly denied 
their rights to correspondence and religious assistance.
  Madam Speaker, Lazaro Alejandro Garcia Farah languishes within the 
confines of hellish squalor and the injustice of the dictatorship's 
gulag, although he has done nothing other than desire that the long-
suffering people of Cuba live in freedom with fundamental human rights 
and dignity. My Colleagues, we must demand the immediate and 
unconditional release of Lazaro Alejandro Garcia Farah and every 
political prisoner in totalitarian Cuba.

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