A little while back I e-mailed Paul Holmes about a jailed chap in Fidels gulag nation called Normando Hernández González, in response to an he supported EDM.
And I have recieved the whittering long winded reply from him:
Dear Paul,
If you take at face value the garbage printed in the diary column of a Tory newspaper then with respect I have to question the validity of your views, as I do anyone who resorts to personal abuse in correspondence as you do.
It is quite possible to accept that Cuba is a dictatorship that abuses human rights –as I pointed out to Cuban officials on every day of my visit there –and still agree with every word of the EDM you refer to. Nelson Mandela was no stranger to imprisonment for his views but praised Cuba as a shining inspiration and made it the first country he visited as President of a free South Africa.
Perhaps you prefer Columbia? –a good ally of the USA –where journalists, human rights workers, teachers and trade unionists are not imprisoned, just shot dead in the street by Government death squads.
Without excusing Cuban human rights abuses I can still point out that they are much less than under Batista, or Pinochet, or the Argentinian Junta, or Columbia. And much much less than under Saddam Hussein in the days when he was a close ally of Thatcher and the first Bush.
Cuba is ready for change and already opening up as a country. The USA ‘s illegal blockade (plus its harbouring of an airline bomber because he happens to be a Cuban ‘exile’ ) is not the way to help Cuba transform.
Paul Holmes.
EDM 982
As for the abuse does he mean this comment(below) I posted previously? I can but assume so and by the way I still stand by my comment.
As Devils Kitchen stated each every person who signed this is a cunt.
Shame on him and all the piss poor politicians who through their actions allow the communist dictatorship in Cuba to torture, kill and oppress the rights of free expression of Cuban nationals.
Sadly Mr Holmes fails to cover the case of Mr González but instead does the old politicians trick of going off at a tangent and attacks the US as well as human rights in another American nation.
Human rights in Columbia are not what I am on about here, the point is your support for the gulag and its jailers that are the current rulers of Cuba.
As for comparing its human rights to other nations well sure we can do that till the cows come home, but that is just blurring the issue which is that of Cuba and its poor human rights record. Something that you try to blur by refering to other nations, maybe we could compare dental services across the Americas? Maybe as you said Cuba has fine dental services, after all I am sure that Fidel's torturers have some practice at removing of citizens teeth albeit with pliers!
Getting onto Mandela, well he may have fawned over Cuba, well that is up to him it still changes not a thing about the poor human rights of Mr González and so many others. Many thousands of whom risk life and limb sailing to the US of A rather than stay in the land of free dental care that is Cuba.
Maybe you would agree with the point that there has to be something wrong with a nation that forces - at gunpoint - its people to stay. Fidel has also been lambasted for his jailing of homosexuals, routine torture of opponents lack of a free media in Cuba.
As for Cuba opening up, I seriously doubt that. Maybe when the gulags are opened, free speech and homosexuality are allowed, when dissidents are freed then I will believe that Cuba is opening up. Oh and free elections as well.
I shall cover again the case of Mr Normando Hernández González who you failed to even mention in your reply.
Link:http://www.newstatesman.com/200711080021
Plus: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=6917
Also: http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/912/prmID/174
A jailed Cuban journalist whose health is rapidly deteriorating in the face of prison-contracted diseases has been chosen as one of four writers to mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer on 15 November. The special day, held on the same date each year, is organised by PEN, the writers' organisation that backs persecuted authors around the world.
Normando Hernández González was imprisoned in 2003 for reports and broadcasts on the internet and Radio Martí that were said by the government to endanger security. Hernández was found guilty of spying and threatening national security, crimes that carry a 25-year jail term. He was one of 75 journalists arrested in the Cuban government crackdown on the press in 2003 and, according to PEN, remains one of 59 still held by the regime.
He was thrown a glimmer of hope a few months ago when the government of Costa Rica effectively granted him asylum in absentia, launching a plea for his release after reports of a downward turn in his condition.
The move came about after Hernández's mother, Bianca González, appealed to Costa Rican legislators to intervene.
José Manuel Echandi, a former Defender of the Citizens in Costa Rica, answered the call and accused Cuba of torture in blocking the journalist's release.
The Cuban journalist's illness has been partly brought about by a hunger strike he began six months ago, but he has also contracted tuberculosis in prison. Hernández has spent most of the past 12 months in a maximum security prison, but was recently moved to a hospital for treatment.
At Echandi's request, Costa Rica asked Cuba to free Hernández and allow him to be transferred across the Caribbean Sea for health care attention in that country. When they received no response, Echandi wrote to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, to seek help to speed his release.
Press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders is also backing the request that Hernández should be transported to Costa Rica.
"Humanitarian concerns are clearly paramount as regards all prisoners of conscience," the organisation said.
Cuba has more journalists locked up than any other country in the world, apart from China. Those still held since March 2003 are serving sentences ranging from 14 to 27 years.
According to Reporters Without Borders, three journalists held in Cuba were arrested after Fidel Castro's brother Raú took over the running of the country last year.
As for abuse Mr Holmes, well how about this. I said before you were a cunt and after your reply I think that you are an even bigger cunt than before. I hope that your words - below - cost you your seat at the next election.Toodle pip ol chap.
Previous bits on Fidels useful idiots:"It is true Cuba has political prisoners and no free elections, but it has very good dentistry"
http://newportcity.blogspot.com/2008/03/paul-holmes-mp-useful-idiot-of-fidel.html
and
http://newportcity.blogspot.com/2008/02/colin-burgon-usefull-idiot-for.html
Tags: CUBA
Oscar Elias Biscet
Combinado del Este prison
Armando Valladares
Lino Fernandez
Isla de Pinos
Elsa Morejon
Fidel Castro
Normando Hernández González
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