[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 10]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 13776]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                FREEDOM FOR NORMANDO HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 23, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise to inform 
Congress about Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, a valiant prisoner of 
conscience in totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Hernandez, an independent journalist and the director of the 
Camaguey College of Independent Journalists in Cuba, has been a 
chronicler of truth amid the lies and deceit of the Cuban totalitarian 
regime. Because he is a journalist who exposed the deplorable 
conditions, ruthless repression and failed policies of the totalitarian 
tyranny, Castro's thugs have continuously harassed Mr. Hernandez. He 
has been detained and released miles from his home on various occasions 
and his telephone service has been cut off since June 15, 2002. In 
Cuba, men and women who seek truth or freedom are considered enemies of 
the state.
  In March 2003, as part of the tyrant's heinous island wide crackdown 
on peaceful prodemocracy activists, Mr. Hernandez was arrested by the 
tyranny. In a sham trial, he was sentenced to 25 years in the 
totalitarian gulag, for the crime of preparing reports, in which he 
attacked the health system, and the education provided in this country, 
questioned the justice system, tourism, culture, agriculture. Following 
his incarceration, Mr. Hernandez has been kept is solitary confinement 
and allowed only 4 hours of sunlight a week. All communication with his 
family has been severely restricted and according to Yarai Reyes, his 
wife, he has been fed rotten food, refused all medical care and has 
been kept in a cell with no electricity.
  When Mr. Hernandez participated in a hunger strike to protest the 
deplorable prison conditions, he was transferred to another prison over 
400 miles away from his family and loved ones. In this prison, he 
languishes in a rat and insect infected dungeon which he shares with 
common prisoners, many of which are considered dangerous and unstable. 
Mr. Hernandez is routinely beaten and denied access to the outside 
world.
  Madam Speaker, on April 30, 2007, the PEN American Center, which 
works to advance literature, defend free expression, and to foster 
international literary fellowship, named Mr. Hernandez the recipient of 
its 2007 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award honoring 
international literary figures that have been imprisoned or persecuted 
for defending the basic human right of expression. Let me be clear, Mr. 
Hernandez is confined in an infernal dungeon for reporting truth 
instead of the mandated lies of the dictatorship in Cuba.
  My colleagues, it is unconscionable and condemnable that just miles 
from our shores, a grotesque gangster regime keeps thousands behind 
bars simply for supporting freedom and democracy. I ask all members of 
this great Congress to demand with one, united, voice, the immediate 
release of Normando Hernandez Gonzalez and every political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.

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