Posted on 04/07/2005 6:24:45 PM PDT by wagglebee
Inmates in a Cuban prison set mattresses and other materials ablaze in violence that left several prisoners seriously injured, a veteran rights activist said Thursday.
The Tuesday night disturbance, later controlled by Cuban authorities, was the second in less than 20 days at the Combinado del Este Prison, which houses thousands of inmates.
Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation, learned of the disturbance from prisoners' relatives who were contacted by authorities. Cuba's communist government issued no official report on the incident at the prison in Havana, and it was unknown how the disturbance was controlled.
Freddy Ibanez Blanco, 33, was being treated in a hospital and had been visited by relatives, said Sanchez. He added that inmates' relatives told him that dozens were injured in Tuesday's disturbance.
"We've received reports that several of them suffered very intense burns," Sanchez said in a statement.
An earlier disturbance at the same prison erupted March 19 when a group of inmates protested as guards tried to transfer some of them to another area, the government reported. Guards quelled the disturbance without the use of firearms and there were no deaths or serious injuries, Cuban officials said at the time.
Sanchez said that Tuesday's unrest was the result of excessive sentences, poor food and insufficient medical care at the prison.
At least a dozen of the 75 activists rounded up in a crackdown on dissent two years ago are housed at the prison, many in hospital wards to receive treatment for various aliments.
None were involved in Tuesday's disturbance, Sanchez said.
Of course the Castro government will never acknowledge that Cuba is anything other than an "island paradise." And I'm certain that the prison was "controlled" with plenty of bullets.
Usually, Castro's criminal justice system is the envy of the entire world. He can process an evil doer from guilty verdict to execution in SIX DAYS! Yeah, 6 days. In Texas, it takes 20 years, and then there are always endless appeals to senile judges who put more faith in non-Cuban foreign law/precedent than in domestic law. With Castro as Sheriff in Havana, there is no doubt that this unpleasantness will quickly end more evil doers will promptly perish. Do you think that any of Castro's foreign prisoners will have an opportunity to consult the consulate of their native land before, you know, the end? No, neither do I.
Don't these prisoners know they should be happy just to be allowed to exist in the workers paradise with the wonderful Fidelle as their leader?
This can't be true. The Cuban health care system is the envy of the world.
End communism in Cuba
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