Yesterday in a secret trial a Cuban independent reporter was tried and sentenced to 4 years in prison for “peligrosidad pre-criminal”, or pre-criminal dangerousness. In other words he had committed no crime but the government thought maybe he would someday.
This is not a unique event in Cuba, there are currently 26 reporters imprisoned on the same charges.
There are many more stories on the incident in Spanish, but for some reason this story does not seem to make it to the English speaking world outside of Miami.
It’s bad, but unhappily this is just not a big story. It’s not in the top ten bad things happening in foreign places. It’s not the biggest story about nasty things happening to a journalist going about his legitimate business (that’d be Alan Johnston). As glee suggests, it’s not even the most egregious thing happening in geographical Cuba at present.
I’m sure Oscar Sánchez Madan would disagree with you, but he doesn’t have the opportunity to do so. He doesn’t even have the opportunity those at Guantanamo do of talking to a lawyer or having his well being monitored by the Red Cross, or having the international press write about their plight.
I do agree with you though that this is not a big story outside the Cuban community, which is why I put it here. If I’d thought there would be a debate about this I would have put it over on GD.
I think that glee’s post was a tongue-in-cheek way to point out that, sadly, other countries also display that kind of behavior. In this particular example, it’s also a perfect if ugly example of los extremos se tocan (extreme opposites end up being the same).
Hasn’t the Supreme Court of the US ruled that the US base at Gitmo is not part of the US? And isn’t that why the US government holds some prisoners there, rather than in other more convenient places which are part of the US?
Don’t know, sorry. I know it’s not part of Cuba though, so maybe it lives like much of Cuba itself, suspended in space and time, marking time until the death of Fidel.
Guantanamo is legally part of Cuba, but under US administration until the 2030s. We only “rent” it from Cuba (which hasn’t cashed our checks in over 40 years).