[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 175 (Tuesday, November 13, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2396]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                FREEDOM FOR DR. JOSE LUIS GARCIA PANEQUE

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                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 13, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART. Madam Speaker, I rise today to remind my 
colleagues about Dr. Jose Luis Garcia Paneque, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Dr. Garcia Paneque is a surgeon by training, an independent 
journalist and a member of the Cuban Independent Medical Association. 
As a director of the independent news agency Libertad, and 
administrator of the Carlos J. Finlay independent library in Las Tunas, 
Cuba, Dr. Garcia Paneque has devoted his life efforts to exposing the 
truth about the horrors inflicted upon the Cuban people by the 
dictatorship in Havana.
  Dr. Garcia Paneque was arrested on March 18, 2003 as part of the 
tyrant's island wide crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy activists. On 
April 4, 2003, in a sham trial, Dr. Garcia Paneque was sentenced to 24 
years in totalitarian squalor for no reason other than that he is a 
supporter of freedom and democracy who has worked to expose the 
depraved horror that is the Cuban tyranny.
  Since his initial incarceration in the subhuman conditions of the 
tyranny's totalitarian dungeons, Dr. Garcia Paneque's weight has 
dropped from a healthy 190 pounds to an emaciated 110 pounds. Dr. 
Garcia Paneque has been thrown in the hellish dungeons to languish in 
conditions so abhorrent that he has had to be hospitalized multiple 
times while incarcerated. Currently, he suffers from chronic diarrhea, 
severe abdominal pain, and poor intestinal absorption, resulting from 
what can only be described as a chronic malnutrition.
  While imprisoned in the totalitarian dungeon, Dr. Garcia Paneque has 
endured constant physical and psychological torture at the hands of 
regime thugs. Although he has not committed a crime, he is forced to 
live with common prisoners who have gone as far as to have made threats 
against his life, threats that the regime's thugs refuse to acknowledge 
as part of their constant effort to avoid having to take action to 
ensure his safety. After months of writhing in pain it was discovered 
that Dr. Garcia Paneque had developed a 36 to 38-mm cyst on one of his 
kidneys. The prison doctors, who had previously ignored his cries for 
medical attention, claimed that surgery to remove the cyst would be 
required. Although his condition is perilous and there exists a serious 
risk that Dr. Garcia Paneque may not survive the abdominal surgery, 
regime authorities refuse to grant him a consultation with doctors not 
affiliated with the prison, and he has yet to receive proper medical 
treatment for his condition.
  Members of Dr. Garcia Paneque's family, including his four children, 
have been repeatedly harassed. In August 2006, a regime mob of more 
than 50 people armed with sticks and stones surrounded the family's 
home, chanting insults and threatening to burn it down. In March of 
2007, fearing for the life of her children who had already endured 
innumerous acts of psychological torture, Dr. Garcia Paneque's wife, 
Yamile Llanes Labrada, an active member of the Ladies in White, was 
forced to flee Cuba with her children. This is another tragic example 
of life under the totalitarian regime in Cuba.
  On October 24, 2007, Dr. Garcia Paneque's wife, and his daughter 
Shirlen, were received and honored by President George W. Bush at the 
White House, where the President publicly called upon the regime to 
release Dr. Garcia Paneque forthwith. The President informed me 
personally after his meeting with Dr. Garcia Paneque's family that he 
was deeply impressed and moved by their heroic examples of courage and 
patriotism.
  Despite the gangster tactics and heinous threats against him, Dr. 
Garcia Paneque continues to demand human rights and dignity for the 
people of Cuba. He is languishing in the squalor of the infernal gulag, 
at the whim of a merciless tyrant, simply because he believes in 
freedom, truth, democracy, and human rights for the people of Cuba.
  Madam Speaker, it is unconscionable that journalists and physicians 
like Dr. Garcia Paneque are locked in dungeons for writing the truth. 
My colleagues, we must demand the immediate and unconditional release 
of Jose Luis Garcia Paneque and every political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.




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