[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 82 (Tuesday, May 24, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H2972-H2973]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              BERTA SOLER

  (Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, it should come as no surprise that 
President Obama has agreed to arm Communist Vietnam and that he 
continues to extend diplomatic niceties and concessions to 
authoritarian regimes that show no intention of changing their brutal 
tactics.
  These overtures to the Castros in Cuba have resulted in a prominent 
human rights defender, Berta Soler--right here in this poster--the 
leader of the peaceful prodemocracy group, the Ladies in White--Las 
Damas de Blanco--and 27 others being arrested this week and facing 
charges of resistance

[[Page H2973]]

because only in Communist regimes and under ruthless dictatorships is 
nonviolent opposition to the regime considered a crime. Peaceful 
dissidence, resistance, is a crime in Cuba.
  For all of the engagement--the concession after concession to the 
ruthless dictatorship--it has not moved the Castros even 1 inch toward 
freedom, toward human rights, toward the rule of law, toward democracy.
  The people of Cuba deserve better.

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