[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16703]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           GUILLERMO FARINAS

  (Mr. RIVERA asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RIVERA. Mr. Speaker, I rise to inform my colleagues of yet more 
beatings and arrests of opposition leaders by the Castro dictatorship 
in Cuba. Early this week, Guillermo Farinas, winner of the Sakharov 
Human Rights Award in 2010, was beaten and arrested by Castro's thugs 
while visiting another dissident on a hunger strike at a hospital in 
the Santa Clara province. According to his mother, Farinas was not 
allowed into the hospital and was arrested. A State security agent then 
held him in place and beat him.
  Farinas is a dissident journalist who has advocated for a free press 
and against Internet censorship while also participating in various 
hunger strikes, asking for the release of political prisoners. On 
Monday, Cuban State security officials also arrested prominent 
dissidents Jorge Luiez Perez Garcia ``Antunez'' and his wife Yris at 
the same hospital and proceeded to drag them through the street.
  While some across the world continue to ignore the brutal reality of 
repression and human rights abuses in Cuba, even pushing for 
appeasement of the Castro tyrants, these heroes continue fighting for 
freedom and democracy. Let us not forget their brave struggle.

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