[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 17555]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                FREEDOM FOR JOSE GABRIEL RAMON CASTILLO

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 26, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Ramon Castillo was a respected professor of mechanical theory at 
Alvaro Barriel Cruz Polytechnic. As a professor, he was committed to 
his students and to helping them advance in their studies. After 
becoming more and more aware of the propaganda mandated by the 
dictatorship, he was unable to continue with the charade of 
manipulating young students with the lies and treachery of a tyrannical 
regime. Because of his strong belief and commitment to truth and 
democracy for the Cuban people, Mr. Ramon Castillo eventually became 
the director of the Independent Culture and Democracy Institute. As 
part of his efforts to bring international attention to the crimes 
committed against the people of Cuba, he began to work as an 
independent journalist to chronicle the reality of deprivation and 
misery that characterizes life under the totalitarian regime.
  Mr. Ramon Castillo was repeatedly subjected to persecution and 
harassment by the dictatorship from the beginning of his involvement in 
the movement to make possible a free and democratic Cuba. On March 19, 
2003, Mr. Ramon Castillo was arrested as part of the dictatorship's 
monstrous crackdown of that year on peaceful pro-democracy activists. 
In a sham trial, he was unjustly ``sentenced'' to 20 years in the 
tyrant's sub-human dungeons.
  Confined in the infernal squalor of Boniato prison in eastern Cuba, 
Mr. Ramon Castillo currently suffers from numerous medical afflictions, 
afflictions only worsened by the grotesquely inhuman quarters in which 
he is forced to survive. In November 2005, Mr. Ramon Castillo was 
diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. His family pleaded to prison 
officials that he be conditionally released to attend to his rapidly 
deteriorating health. Their pleas went unanswered and in February 2007 
prison personnel explained that he would be scheduled to undergo a 
laparoscopic biopsy of his liver; a procedure that Mr. Ramon Castillo 
had already endured in 2005 and that the prison thugs knew he would be 
forced to refuse because he is too weak to undergo the procedure 
because of malnutrition, lack of medical attention, and the seriousness 
of his diabetes and other illnesses.
  It is unconscionable for any man to be confined in the grotesquely 
inhuman Castro dungeons for his belief in democracy. Mr. Ramon Castillo 
is one of the many heroes of the Cuban pro-democracy movement who are 
chained in the dungeons of the dictatorship for their beliefs. Mr. 
Ramon Castillo represents the best of the Cuban nation, a nation 
oppressed but not destroyed, bound and gagged but not resigned to live 
in tyranny.
  Madam Speaker, it is intolerable that Mr. Ramon Castillo is 
languishing in the totalitarian gulag 90 miles from our shore simply 
because he believes in freedom and democracy. He is a symbol of freedom 
and democracy who will always be remembered when freedom reigns again 
in Cuba. My colleagues, we must demand the immediate release of Jose 
Gabriel Ramon Castillo, and every prisoner of conscience suffering in 
totalitarian Cuba.

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