[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 5]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 6579]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  FREEDOM FOR JOSE ANTONIO MOLA PORRO

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 15, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Jose Antonio Mola Porro, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Mola Porro is a member of the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights 
and director of the Pedro Luis Boitel Independent Library, in a country 
oppressed by a regime that mandates official propaganda and prohibits 
truthful news. Due to his commitment to democracy and human rights, he 
has he has been repeatedly harassed and incarcerated.
  In May 2005, while on his way to a meeting of the Assembly to Promote 
Civil Society in Cuba, Mr. Mola Porro was arrested and condemned to two 
agonizing years in one of the dictator's hellish totalitarian gulags 
for being a ``pre-criminal danger to society''. On February 28, 2006, 
Mr. Mola Porro was ``conditionally'' released after serving ten months 
of his ``sentence''. Never wavering in his commitment to freedom for 
the Cuban people, upon his release he again devoted his energies to 
depicting the true, tragic, reality of totalitarian Cuba.
  During the early morning hours of November 17, 2006, approximately a 
dozen of the regime's state security thugs rearrested Mr. Mola Porro 
and again forced him to survive against all odds in an infernal 
dungeon. Following his arrest, the dictator's henchmen broke into Mr. 
Mola Porro's home, savagely wreaking havoc on what little belongings he 
had. When they finished, over one hundred books and magazines, along 
with many of his personal belongings, had been stolen.
  Madam Speaker, Mr. Mola Porro suffers in grotesque conditions at the 
whim of a tyrant because of his steadfast belief that the Cuban people 
do not deserve to live condemned to oppression and under constant 
threat of unprovoked torture, abuse and arbitrary arrest. A condition 
that has fated, according to the U.S. Department of State's Country 
Reports on Human Rights Practices--2006, thousands of Cuban citizens to 
serve sentences for ``dangerousness'' in the absence of any criminal 
activity.
  Mr. Mola Porro is a symbol of bravery in the face of a murdering 
tyrant's oppression. He is unrelenting in his fight for freedom for the 
Cuban people. It is a crime of the highest order that people, just 90 
miles from our shore, who dream of and work for freedom, are imprisoned 
in these nightmarish conditions.
  Madam Speaker, despite the constant harassment, the example of Mr. 
Mola Porro is proof that the Cuban people have leaders who are unafraid 
to demonstrate their thirst for democracy and freedom. My Colleagues, 
we must demand the immediate release of Jose Antonio Mola Porro and 
every prisoner of conscience in totalitarian Cuba.

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