[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 4413]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 FREEDOM FOR LAMASIEL GUTIERREZ ROMERO

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 29, 2006

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Lamasiel Gutierrez Romero, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mrs. Gutierrez Romero is an independent journalist working so that 
the world can understand the grotesque reality of Castro's hideous 
oppression. Using the limited tools of independent journalism in a 
totalitarian state, Mrs. Gutierrez Romero courageously wrote about the 
bleak, broken society that is the result of the tyrannical policies of 
the totalitarian dictatorship. Because of Mrs. Gutierrez Romero's 
unrelenting commitment to illuminating the nightmare that is the Castro 
regime, she has been constantly harassed by the dictator's thugs.
  According to Reporters Without Borders, Mrs. Gutierrez Romero was 
sentenced to seven months of house arrest for her journalistic 
activities. Despite this order, Mrs. Gutierrez Romero continued her 
independent journalism. Unwilling to be muzzled by the totalitarian 
regime, she bravely defied their orders and continued to disseminate 
the truth about Cuba. Because of her unrelenting courage in the face of 
horrific oppression, on October 24, 2005, she was thrown in 
totalitarian gulag.
  It is unconscionable that brave men and women can be locked up in the 
inhuman quarters of Castro's gulag for their belief in truth, liberty, 
and democracy. Despite incessant repression, harassment, incarceration 
and abuse, she does not waiver in her commitment to report the truth 
and the facts. Mrs. Gutierrez Romero is one of the many heroes of the 
peaceful Cuban democratic opposition who are locked in the dungeons of 
the dictatorship for their beliefs. They are symbols of freedom and 
democracy who will always be remembered when freedom reigns again in 
Cuba.
  Mr. Speaker, it is unconscionable that journalists such as Mrs. 
Gutierrez Romero 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. 
It is repulsive to the ideal of freedom that independent journalists 
are locked in totalitarian gulags 90 miles from our shore. My 
Colleagues, we must demand the immediate and unconditional release of 
Lamasiel Gutierrez Romero and every prisoner of conscience in 
totalitarian Cuba.

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