[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12517]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                FREEDOM FOR REINALDO MIGUEL LABRADA PENA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 22, 2006

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Reinaldo Miguel Labrada Pena, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Labrada Pena is a peaceful pro-democracy activist and a member of 
the Christian Liberation Movement. His life is dedicated to the 
proposition that the men and women of Cuba must be free: free to learn, 
free to worship, free to enjoy their inalienable human rights. 
Unfortunately, the nightmare that is the Castro regime continues to 
violently oppress the people of Cuba, including those that bravely make 
known the atrocities committed against the Cuban people for the world 
to see.
  In March 2003, as part of the regime's heinous crackdown on peaceful, 
pro-democracy activists, Mr. Labrada Pena was arrested. In a sham 
trial, he was sentenced to 6 years in the totalitarian gulag.
  Mr. Labrada Pena is languishing in an inhuman, grotesque gulag simply 
because of his religious convictions and his desire to live in liberty. 
According to Amnesty International, he has been denied access to 
religious services and has inadequate ventilation in his squalid cell.
  Mr. Labrada Pena is representative of the fighting spirit of the 
Cuban people: of their rejection of the brutality, discrimination, 
depravity, and oppression of the totalitarian tyranny. Thousands 
languish in the gulag because, like Mr. Labrada Pena, they refuse to 
accept the tyrannical dictatorship in Cuba today. It is reprehensible 
that, at the dawn of the 21st Century, men and women like Mr. Labrada 
Pena are still locked in dank dungeons because of the tenets of their 
faith.
  Mr. Speaker, it is unconscionable that peaceful Cubans of all 
genders, creeds and colors are locked in Castro's barbarous gulag 
because they believe in a tree Cuba. While the entire world sits by and 
ignores the suffering of the Cuban people, brave men and women like Mr. 
Labrada Pena represent the best of mankind. My Colleagues, we must 
demand freedom and human rights for all people, including those who 
live under the darkness of totalitarian regimes. We must demand 
immediate and unconditional freedom for Reinaldo Miguel Labrada Pena 
and every prisoner of conscience in totalitarian Cuba.

                          ____________________