[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 5]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 6432]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                FREEDOM FOR MARIO ENRIQUE MAYO HERNANDEZ

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 1, 2004

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Mario Enrique Mayo Hernandez, a prisoner of conscience in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Mayo Hernandez is a lawyer by profession who was fired by the 
Castro dictatorship from his job as a lawyer because he believes in 
freedom and democracy. After being terminated for his democratic 
opinions, Mr. Mayo Hernandez began working as an independent journalist 
so the world could understand the reality of Castro's hideous 
oppression. Using the limited tools of independent journalism in a 
totalitarian state, Mr. Mayo Hernandez courageously wrote about the 
bleak, broken, society that is the result of the tyrannical policies of 
the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship. In order to better disseminate the 
truth about totalitarian Cuba, Mr. Mayo Hernandez eventually became the 
director of the press agency ``Felix Varela.''
  On March 18, 2003, as part of Castro's brutal March 2003 crackdown on 
peaceful prodemocracy activists, Mr. Mayo Hernandez was arrested by the 
tyrant's police thugs. According to Amnesty International, he was 
accused of ``creating conditions'' that would allow the UN Commission 
on Human Rights to condemn the totalitarian regime for its gross human 
rights violations. In the sham trial that sentenced him to 20 years in 
the totalitarian gulag, Mr. Mayo Hernandez was convicted because of 
``counterrevolutionary'' articles on the abhorrent prison conditions 
and the situation of families of political prisoners.
  Mr. Mayo Hernandez is currently languishing in the oppressive 
conditions of the totalitarian gulag. According to Reporters Without 
Borders, Mr. Mayo Hernandez has been held in conditions of ``maximum 
harshness'' that include being locked in solitary confinement, having 
to wait four months between family visits, and being transferred to a 
cell with common law criminals. Let there be no doubt, Mr. Mayo 
Hernandez is being tortured in the totalitarian gulag. Because of his 
belief in freedom and democracy, because of his truthful depictions of 
the decrepit reality of the Castro regime, Mr. Mayo Hernandez has been 
``sentenced'' to 20 years in Castro's violent, corrupt, inhumane, 
totalitarian gulag.
  Mr. Speaker, it is categorically unacceptable that peaceful pro-
democracy activists languish in the gulags of tyrannical regimes. My 
Colleagues, we must demand the immediate release of Mario Enrique Mayo 
Hernandez and every prisoner of conscience in totalitarian Cuba.

                          ____________________