[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 14272]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   FREEDOM FOR FABIO PRIETO LLORENTE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 25, 2004

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Fabio Prieto Llorente a political prisoner in totalitarian 
Cuba.
  Mr. Prieto Llorente is an independent journalist for the independent 
press agency of Isla de Pinos. Instead of the false propaganda mandated 
by the regime, he writes about the reality of the reprehensible 
repression inflicted on the Cuban people by the dictatorship. Because 
of his belief in truth in print, truth for the people of Cuba and truth 
to enable the world to better comprehend the daily horrors of 
totalitarian Cuba, Mr. Prieto Llorente was a target of the totalitarian 
regime.
  According to Amnesty International, Mr. Prieto Llorente received 
threats and warnings from Castro's thugs in order to prevent him from 
pursuing his career as a truthful journalist. He was detained in 
January 2002 simply because he reported on an opposition demonstration. 
On March 19, 2003, Mr. Prieto Llorente was arrested because he 
published the facts about the tyrannical regime.
  He was arrested as part of the despicable island wide crackdown of 
that month on peaceful pro-democracy activists. In a sham trial, Mr. 
Prieto Llorente was sentenced to 20 years in the infernal totalitarian 
gulag. While incarcerated in the grotesque squalor of the atrocious 
gulag, he has been held in solitary confinement, confined with common 
criminals, suffered from violent headaches and lack of medical care. 
Let us be very clear, Mr. Prieto Llorente is languishing in unspeakable 
squalor because he published the truth.
  Mr. Speaker, it is unconscionable that journalists such as Mr. Prieto 
Llorente are locked in dungeons for writing and publishing the facts 
about the nightmare that is the Castro regime. At the dawn of the 21st 
Century, it must no longer be acceptable for anyone in the world, 
anywhere in the world, to be locked in a gulag for writing the truth. 
My colleagues, we must demand the immediate release of Fabio Prieto 
Llorente and every prisoner of conscience languishing in the Cuban 
dictatorship's abhorrent gulag.

                          ____________________