"My son is doing badly"

One of the bravest of the brave men locked away in the Cuban gulag for their beliefs and their work is the journalist Normando Hernández González

Jeremy Girard, an editor at Bloomberg News, this morning writes of how Hernández's life is in great danger:

"Mi hijo esta muy mal. Muy mal.'' Even on the speakerphone from Miami, Blanca Gonzalez's voice is unmistakably choked with emotion. "My son is doing badly. Very badly,'' she says. "He said that from there he will leave dead.''

"There'' is Kilo 7, a maximum-security Cuban prison in Camaguey, one of several in which journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, now 37, has been held since April 2003. He is serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against the state that include writing articles critical of the Cuba's health, education and judicial agencies. Suffering from tuberculosis and a chronic parasitic infection, both contracted in prison, Hernandez Gonzalez is perilously underweight at just over 100 pounds, according to his mother, who adds that his illnesses are poorly treated.

In April, at her urging, Costa Rican legislators granted Hernandez Gonzalez a visa that could have gotten him out of prison and the country. But Cuban officials last week refused to honor the visa.

So he continues to deteriorate, limited to one visit every two months from his wife, Yarai Reyes, and Daniela, the daughter from whom he has been separated since her first birthday celebration, on the day before his arrest.

His wife's visits are the only time he is allowed fresh food. There are also occasional examinations by a gastroenterologist, who confirms his condition but cannot or will not provide regular, proper medication and diet.

"The eyes of a doctor won't cure me,'' the writer told his wife when she visited last week, according to his mother.

Independent Journalists

Hernandez Gonzalez was arrested on March 18, 2003, during a crackdown that netted 75 journalists and other alleged dissidents. After brief trials, most of which reportedly lasted less than a day, they were sentenced to prison terms of as long as 25 years. According to human-rights organizations monitoring the situation, 59 of the 75 remain in prison.

At the time of his arrest, Hernandez Gonzalez was the head of the Camaguey College of Independent Journalists. "It was a group established by Normando,'' says his mother, who now lives in Miami. "The headquarters was at my house, in Camaguey. They are all in jail now.''

The group's 10 writers, of whom Hernandez Gonzalez was the youngest, were charged with violating Article 91 of the Cuban Criminal Code for writing stories that tracked government abuses and mismanagement by social-service agencies, according to a report by the PEN American Center, a watchdog group that publicizes human-rights violations against writers around the world.

Read the whole thing here, and read more about Hernández's current condition here.

For more on how you can show your support for Normándo Hernández and other Cuban political prisoners, visit Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty.

Posted by Marc at June 28, 2007 07:32 AM

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Posted by: Tomas Estrada-Palma at June 28, 2007 09:41 AM

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