[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 15748]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                FREEDOM FOR LAZARO JOAQUIN ALONSO ROMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 13, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Lazaro Joaquin Alonso Roman, a prisoner of conscience in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Alonso Roman is a peaceful pro-democracy activist who desires 
freedom for the people of Cuba. His dream is that all Cubans be allowed 
to freely exercise their fundamental human rights. Unfortunately, the 
nightmare that is the totalitarian dictatorship specifically targets 
those courageous men and women who bravely risk their lives and the 
safety of their families to shed light on the realities of totalitarian 
Cuba.
  On July 13, 2005, Mr. Alonso Roman was shamefully arrested while 
participating in a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration in Havana 
honoring the victims of the ``13 of March'' tugboat massacre of 1994 in 
which 72 men, women and children were chased down and attacked by the 
regime's security thugs for attempting to flee the dictatorship in 
search of freedom. More than half of the unarmed refugees on the 
tugboat were systematically drowned at the direct order of the tyrant 
while they struggled to stay alive in the ocean waters.
  After serving 21 months of a two-year ``sentence'' for ``public 
disorder, rebellion and reckless endangerment'', Mr. Alonso Roman was 
released from the infernal dungeons on April 24, 2007. On May 19, less 
than a month later, Mr. Alonso Roman was thrown back in the 
dictatorship's hellish gulag for expressing concern over why the 
regime's gangster thugs were deliberately harassing him and demanding 
to see his identification papers. According to his wife, Juana Delma 
Ruiz, his mere questions were enough for the regime's thugs to brutally 
handcuff and shove her husband into a police car and drag him to 
Dragones Prison in Havana.
  Once in the irons of Dragones Mr. Alonso Roman was informed that he 
would be ``tried'' on trumped-up charges of ``resisting arrest and 
contempt'' which would lead to more undeserved misery and suffering of 
the confines of a totalitarian dungeon. Let me be clear, Mr. Alonso 
Roman is being caged simply for questioning the injustice with which he 
is treated.
  An injustice anywhere is an affront to justice everywhere, said Dr. 
Martin Luther King, Jr. Mr. Alonso Roman is representative of the 
longing for freedom of the Cuban people and their rejection of the 
brutality, depravity and oppression of the totalitarian regime. It is 
reprehensible that thousands of men and women like Mr. Alonso Roman are 
languishing in hellish conditions because they refuse to accept the 
tyrannical dictatorship in Cuba today.
  Madam Speaker, it is unconscionable that peaceful Cubans are locked 
in a tyrant's dungeons for believing in a free Cuba. My Colleagues, we 
must demand freedom and human rights for all people, including those 
who live under the vicious and unforgiving darkness of totalitarian 
regimes. We must demand the immediate and unconditional release of 
Lazaro Joaquin Alonso Roman and every political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.

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