[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 2887-2888]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  FREEDOM FOR CLARO SANCHEZ ALTARRIBA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 17, 2005

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Claro Sanchez Altarriba, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Sanchez Altarriba is a member of the Movement of Cuban Young 
People for Democracy. He knows with certainty that Cuba

[[Page 2888]]

needs to be liberated from the nightmare that is the Castro regime. 
Through peaceful activity, Mr. Sanchez Altarriba has been a courageous 
voice against the totalitarian regime and their continued acts of 
tyranny and terrorism.
  According to Amnesty International, Mr. Sanchez Altarriba has 
suffered harassment for his activities, including being detained in the 
grotesque gulag and fined in October, 2002. Despite the continued 
threat of brutal retaliation for his peaceful activities, Mr. Sanchez 
Altarriba continued to believe in, and advocate for, freedom for the 
people of Cuba. Unfortunately, as part of the tyrant's heinous, March 
2003, island wide crackdown on peaceful pro democracy advocates, Mr. 
Sanchez Altarriba was arrested by the dictatorship. In a sham trial, he 
was sentenced to 15 years in the totalitarian gulag.
  Mr. Sanchez Altarriba is currently languishing in an inhuman gulag 
because of his belief in democracy. According to a letter written by 
fellow prisoner of conscience Lester Gonzalez Penton and published by 
M.A.R. por Cuba:

       A cement wall is all that separates both jails, but that 
     one has a tougher regime than this one, several guards 
     hitting defenseless people inside the jails using ``marabu'' 
     sticks. That is the reason why many prisoners suffer from 
     aches and sicknesses behind bars, worsened by lack of medical 
     care, this being the reason for self-inflicted wounds as a 
     way to get care. Thousands of mosquitoes, rats, crawl around 
     as in their own home, with the worst hygiene conditions. 
     Eight of us brothers in the cause were removed from the 
     cells. There only remains Claro Sanchez Altarriba, from 
     Santiago de Cuba.

  Mr. Speaker, it is unconscionable that human beings are locked in 
this barbarously inhuman gulag because they believe that all men and 
women have a right to freedom and democratic government. While the 
entire world sits by and ignores the suffering of the Cuban people, 
brave men and women like Claro Sanchez Altarriba represent the best of 
mankind. My Colleagues, we must demand freedom and human rights for all 
people, especially those who live under the darkness of totalitarian 
regimes. We must demand immediate and unconditional freedom for Claro 
Sanchez Altarriba and every prisoner of conscience in totalitarian 
Cuba.

                          ____________________