[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 156 (Tuesday, October 16, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2153-E2154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FREEDOM FOR ERNESTO DURAN RODRIGUEZ

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 16, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Ernesto Duran Rodriguez, a prisoner of conscience in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Duran Rodriguez is a pro-democracy activist currently imprisoned 
in a dungeon for his peaceful work to liberate Cuba from the grasp of 
the terrorist totalitarian regime. His insistence on freedom, 
fundamental human rights and speaking openly about the plight of the 
Cuban people under the tyranny's machinery of repression has made him a 
target of the totalitarian regime.
  Mr. Duran Rodriguez has been repeatedly harassed and detained by 
regime thugs since 1995, when he was first arrested and in a farcical 
trial ``sentenced'' to 22 years in the regime's heinous gulag on 
charges of ``evasion'' and attempting to exit the country without 
``proper permission''. Let me be very clear, Mr. Duran Rodriguez has 
been thrown in the gulag for daring to dream of and working on behalf 
of a democratic Cuba.
  On August 8, 2002, Mr. Duran Rodriguez and another political 
prisoner, Leoncio Rodriguez Ponce were brutally beaten by regime thugs 
and thrown into the wretched squalor of punishment cells. On August 28 
of that year, both men were tried on trumped-up charges that they had 
``disrespected'' the demented tyrant. Both men were denied the right to 
a defense, and although the exact motive for their second trial is 
unknown, the so-called ``court'' found ``sufficient cause'' to increase 
their prison terms by two years.
  While incarcerated in the squalor of the heinous gulag, Mr. Duran 
Rodriguez has suffered beatings, lack of medical treatment and being 
persistently denied the opportunity to communicate with his family. On 
January 29, 2006, prison thugs without warning entered his cell during 
the early morning hours and placed him in shackles on mere suspicion 
that he might have circulated leaflets in the prison. With his movement 
constricted, they proceeded to ransack his cell, stealing what few 
documents he kept and leaving his few precious personal effects thrown 
throughout his cell.
  Mr. Duran Rodriguez is one of the many heroes of the Cuban pro-
democracy movement who are locked in the dungeons of an oppressive 
totalitarian dictatorship for their beliefs. These men and women are 
symbols of freedom and democracy who will always be remembered when 
freedom returns to Cuba. Mr. Duran Rodriguez's courage in defiance of 
tyranny serves as an inspiring reminder that the tyranny's gulags are 
full men and women who represent the best of the Cuban nation.
  Madam Speaker, it is absolutely unacceptable that peaceful pro-
democracy activists are languishing in the heinous and depraved prisons 
of tyrants. My Colleagues, we must demand the immediate and 
unconditional release of Ernesto Duran Rodriguez and every prisoner of 
conscience in totalitarian Cuba.

[[Page E2154]]



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