[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 7]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 10608]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    FREEDOM FOR OSCAR SANCHEZ MADAN

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 26, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Oscar Sanchez Madan, a political prisoner in totalitarian 
Cuba.
  Mr. Sanchez Madan is an independent journalist who has been a 
contributor to the independent press agency Cubanet since 2005. His 
straightforward articles as an independent journalist in totalitarian 
Cuba have helped interested observers of the Cuban tragedy throughout 
the world to learn the truth about the nightmare that is the Castro 
regime. Because of his commitment to accurate reporting, he 
persistently chronicled the brutal violence and rampant corruption of 
the Cuban tyranny. Mr. Sanchez reported the truth in totalitarian Cuba, 
with the knowledge that any freedom of the press, any effort to shed 
light on the regime's atrocities, is met with brutal repression.
  According to a Cubanet report, Mr. Sanchez Madan was arrested and 
detained by state security thugs on February 25, 2007 because of 
articles he had written describing problems confronted by the oppressed 
people of Cuba on a daily basis. He also reported on corruption by a 
government official in the town of Pedro Betancourt. After being 
detained, several state security agents questioned Mr. Sanchez Madan, 
demanding to know whether he was an independent journalist or had 
studied journalism. All the documents he carried on him pertaining to a 
story he was working on were confiscated.
  Despite being forced to endure incessant repression, beatings and 
several unwarranted detentions in the last year alone, he remained 
committed to the people of Cuba and to exposing the truth concerning 
the tyranny. According to reports, on April 13, 2007, state security 
thugs confronted Mr. Sanchez Madan with trumped-up charges that he 
posed a ``pre-criminal social danger''. In little over one day, he was 
arrested, tried and ``sentenced'' to 4 years of torture in a 
totalitarian dungeon without even so much as the presence of a relative 
or a defense lawyer.
  Mr. Sanchez Madan finds himself in an infernal cell in the 
totalitarian gulag whose depraved conditions are described by the U.S. 
State Department as ``harsh and life threatening.'' The State 
Department also reports that police and prison officials beat, neglect, 
isolate, and deny medical treatment to detainees and prisoners. It is a 
crime against humanity that people who work for freedom, who expose the 
truth and who work for the restoration of human rights to the Cuban 
people, are locked up in these condemnable conditions.
  Madam Speaker, Mr. Sanchez Madan is one of the many heroes of the 
Cuban democratic movement locked in the dungeons of a maniacal tyrant 
for exposing the truth about the realities of totalitarian Cuba. No 
matter how horrifically brutal the consequences of a dignified struggle 
for liberty, these men and women represent the best of the Cuban 
nation. My colleagues, we must demand the immediate release of Oscar 
Sanchez Madan and every political prisoner in totalitarian Cuba.

                          ____________________