"Cuban dissident ready to die for cause" by Paul Haven, Associated Press | March 6, 2010
SANTA CLARA, Cuba - A dissident journalist who has gone nine days without eating or drinking said yesterday that he is willing to give his life to call attention to the plight of Cuba’s political prisoners.
We have Muslims doing that in Gitmo and there is no coverage.
Related: Hungry For News About Cuba
Yeah, the agenda-pushing gets tiring after a while, BG.
If he does, Guillermo Farinas would be the second hunger striker to die on the communist island in as many weeks, and his death would probably spark a new round of international condemnation of the Castro government.
“There are moments in the lives of nations where martyrs are needed and I think that moment has arrived,’’ Farinas said during an interview at his shabby, two-story home with walls of faded pink and lime-green.
Oh, Jees!!!!
Farinas was hospitalized Wednesday after briefly losing consciousness. Doctors gave him fluids intravenously, then sent him home, saying there was little more they could do if he refused to eat.
Farinas is already approaching the limit of how long most people can go without water. But his family plans to hospitalize him each time he loses consciousness, meaning more fluid treatments that could keep him alive for weeks.
Well, it's been, what, 10 days since that article was in my Glob?
Farinas, 48, has held 22 hunger strikes in the past 15 years, and has been jailed repeatedly for dissident activities on charges including disrespecting authority, public disorder, and assault against a suspected undercover government informant.
Oh, so he's like a kid holding his breath, 'eh?
Related: AmeriKan Hypocrisy on Terrorism
Btw, ever hear of the Cuban Five, readers?
Not likely if you read a Boston Glob.
Actually, when you think about it, Cuba has probably suffered more AmeriKan terrorism than any other nation on earth combined. Been over 50 years of sabotage, bio-warfare and harassment.
This time, he stopped eating and drinking on Feb. 24, the day after jailed dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo died following an 83-day hunger strike in which he only accepted vitamin-fortified liquids.
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Move on to this?
"Cuba’s health care now pays for sex changes; Coverage is sign of move toward greater tolerance" by Will Weissert, Associated Press | March 14, 2010
HAVANA — Yiliam Gonzalez is an example of a small but remarkable transformation for the rugged revolution of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and a band of ever-macho, bearded rebels, who long punished gays and transsexuals — but now are paying for sex changes....
Well, pick another plan, Americans. I don't want this one. Great system and great people, but there are others to choose from.
Government media campaigns now discourage homophobia. Hundreds of gay Cubans marched down Havana’s spiffy La Rampa boulevard last spring, just a year after authorities had forbidden a gay-pride parade.
That is not what we are talking about here. Homosexuality and gender transformation are completely separate things.
And it is the agenda all the time, isn't it, Glob?
THIS is how you choose to highlight Cuba's excellent medical system?
With the most sickening and extreme example of universal, single-payer coverage you can find?
“I’d like to think that discrimination against homosexuals is a problem that is being overcome,’’ Fidel Castro, the former president, said during a series of interviews with French journalist Ignacio Ramonet between 2003 and 2005. “Old prejudices and narrow-mindedness will increasingly be things of the past.’’
A closed-minded Communist relic said that?
I see that occurring when Israel is no more.
That’s not unusual, said Denise Leclair, executive director of the Washington-based International Foundation for Gender Education. “In many countries people complain bitterly. It’s primarily driven by religious beliefs,’’ Leclair said.
Sorry, can't use that one on Cuba. Commies are atheists. They don't believe in God.
Religious objections weren’t a problem in Cuba, which was officially atheist for decades. Instead, many Cubans said their country was too poor to pay for the procedure, writing letters to the editor in the Communist Party newspaper Granma after the first successful Cuban surgery was announced in 1988....
Yes, but the agenda is better served if you make the Cubans look like bigots, right, BG?
Canada, Britain, France, and Brazil offer government-financed sex changes, among other countries.
Oh, so all those plans do, too?
Well, I guess I'll have to accept it as part of the package whichever model chosen.
All better than that PoS that is about to be rammed up the American bung hole.
San Francisco began paying for sex changes for city and county employees in 2001 and Fort Worth is considering following suit.
Why am I not surprised about San Francisco?
At least the Cubans kept the priests out, huh?
Some large employers, including
Find another partner.
Still, Leclair said most of the largest insurance carriers in the United States do not cover the surgery....
That is WHY you need a UNIVERSAL, SINGLE-PAYER MODEL that WORKS, gender-unsatisfied Americans!
See? We are ON THE SAME SIDE!!!
I'm NOT a DIVISIVE PERSON at all. I WANT YOU to get your HEALTH CARE!
We can SHUT DOWN the WARS to do it!
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Anyway, I'm ready to take a puff of that cigar myself.
"Amnesty International calls for greater rights in Cuba; Makes demand on anniversary of crackdown" by Paul Haven, Associated Press | March 17, 2010
HAVANA — The human rights group Amnesty International was especially critical of Cuban laws that make vague offenses like “dangerousness’’ a jailable crime. Police are allowed to arrest somebody who has committed no crime if they can show the person has a proclivity to be dangerous, Amnesty said....
I used to be a donor to AI long ago; however, the western-centric agenda-pushing has really played out with me.
As long as AmeriKa keeps doing the things it criticizes and accuse other nations of doing, I don't want to hear or read it.
Sorry. Glass house, you know.
Well, a redacted glass house....
The group said it was making the call for change around the anniversary of one of Cuba’s largest recent crackdowns on dissent — the March 18, 2003, arrest of some 75 people, including many independent journalists, on charges including treason and working for an enemy state.
Related: Cubans Holding CIA Spy
Iran Recognizes AmeriKan Reporters
Yeah, journalists, whatever, MSM.
Yeah, I'm sure the CIA paper would give up the cover and tell us the truth, dear readers.
Fifty-three of them remain jailed, and many have received lengthy sentences.
The government did not respond to a request for comment on the Amnesty report, but routinely dismisses such human rights groups as tools of the United States.
I'm beginning to see them in that light more and more.
Cuba’s human rights situation has been brought back into the spotlight by the Feb. 23 death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a long hunger strike in jail. Another man, Guillermo Farinas, has refused to eat or drink since shortly after Zapata Tamayo’s death, though he has intermittently received fluids and nutrients intravenously at a local hospital.
Beating that drum again, MSM?
The European Parliament on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to condemn Cuba for Zapata Tamayo’s death, which it called “avoidable and cruel.’’ Cuba responded quickly, saying it “rejects impositions, intolerance, and pressure.’’
Yesterday, a leading official group for Cuban intellectuals issued a statement calling Zapata Tamayo a common criminal.
Huh?
It denounced international criticism as part of a smear campaign against the country and singled out foreign “media corporations and hegemonic interests’’ as leading culprits in what it called a coordinated anti-Cuban effort.
:-)
They are talking about my Boston Globe here!
“We know with what malice and morbidity they distort our reality and lie daily about Cuba,’’ the National Union of Artists and Writers of Cuba wrote of the foreign media.
Oh, yeah, that is the AmeriKan MSM!! I recognize the smell.
Mexico is the latest country to openly criticize the Cuban government, with the Foreign Ministry saying Monday that it regretted the death of Zapata Tamayo and was worried about the fate of Farinas.
You just worry about that out-of-control drug war, Meh-hee-co.
“With all due respect to the sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba . . . Mexico urges the Cuban government to take the actions necessary to protect the health and dignity of its prisoners....’’
How you treating yours, and why not direct that comment north where it better applies?
And when people say with all due respect they are offering none.
It is not clear how Cuba’s small, fractured opposition is planning to mark the March 18 anniversary. The Ladies in White, a group of mothers, wives, and sisters of those jailed in 2003, has declared a week of protest including marches, prayer gatherings, and the reading of letters from their jailed loved ones.
Yesterday, dozens of government supporters screamed at the women as they marched peacefully....
Well, you can see what side of the agenda the AmeriKan MSM is on.
Cuba has denounced the dissidents as common criminals and mercenaries paid by Washington to destabilize the country and insists all nations have the right to jail traitors and others seeking to overthrow their government.
Yeah, we do it all the time up here.
So these CIA clowns in Cuba were working for Blackwater?
Not like AmeriKa has never used or paid mercenaries.
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What? Us? Isolated?
