[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 65 (Wednesday, April 23, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E693-E694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              FREEDOM FOR VICTOR YUNIER FERNANDEZ MARTINEZ

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 23, 2008

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak on behalf of Victor Yunier Fernandez Martinez, a prisoner of 
conscience in totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Fernandez Martinez, a young man of only 24 years of age and a 
member of the Popular Republican Party, was not even charged with 
committing any crime, even by the Orwellian standards and whims that 
make up the ``legal system'' in that enslaved island. Instead, he was 
hauled away to the gulag simply under the pretext of being a ``pre-
criminal social danger.''
  Agents of the tyranny's secret police said that they suspected Mr. 
Fernandez Martinez was involved in a graffiti campaign in Havana to 
promote freedom of expression. In fact, there was no link between Mr. 
Fernandez Martinez and these actions, but that did not stop the 
oppressive forces from detaining him and testing him for paint residue, 
which they did not find. This incident was cited 2 years later when he 
was sentenced to 3 years in the gulag because of the paranoiac 
perception of the dictatorship that Mr. Fernandez Martinez, a peaceful 
dissident, is a ``dangerous man.''
  Madam Speaker, Mr. Fernandez Martinez's mother has visited him in 
prison and has reported that even though conscious of the profound 
injustice of his incarceration he was in good spirits, a true testament 
of the spirit and drive of the heroes who are confined in the Cuban 
totalitarian gulag.
  It is unconscionable that the world simply stands by, in the 21st 
century, and silently acquiesces to the torture, oppression and 
denigration of a noble people only 90 miles from the United States of 
America.
  Madam Speaker, Victor Fernandez represents the best of the new 
generation in Cuba; a generation that has known only oppression and 
misery but that will play a central role in the transformation of Cuba 
from a totalitarian nightmare to a representative democracy with the 
rule of law for all of its citizens. We must demand the release of all 
those who are persecuted for their democratic ideals. My colleagues, we 
must demand the immediate

[[Page E694]]

and unconditional release of Victor Yunier Fernandez Martinez and every 
political prisoner in totalitarian Cuba.

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