Answering the Requests of Those Who Are Looking for Holes

Answering the Requests of Those Who Are Looking for Holes / Angel
Santiesteban
Posted on March 22, 2014

Many people ask me to clarify some points that tarnish the credibility
of my case and situation. As Internet is the playground of all, we can
utter truths, but also otherwise. And every time, after every event,
positive or negative, that happens in my life, I have a bunch of people
trying to highlight an insidious observation, creating doubt and
suggesting, in general, that I'm lying.

Among them, some even tell me that there are people who think I'm
imprisoned because of a family dispute. That possibility seems
impossible to me since the all evidence of my innocence can be found on
the Internet, and nothing, not a single thing, against me.

So how can anyone even suggest that what the government in power says
about me is true. I have exposed to public review all my proofs, I
proved that I am innocent. On top of that, I made a video of an alleged
witness for State Security's Prosecution and the "plaintiff" against me.
I absolute believe that, after seeing this proof, among many others, no
one can accept the version of the State against me.

After someone makes a pact with the State, with its political police,
and its legal arm, it could appear plausible. I've said a thousand times
before opening my blog I was [in the eyes of the regime itself] an
exemplary citizen, save for my writing which was already, from my start,
rebellious.

I was also an exemplary father, and spent more than two and half years
lovingly and physically separated from my ex, with whom I have a beloved
son.

I have also offered the name of Major Pablo, chief of the sector chiefs
of the municipality of Plaza.

In my blog you can read all the irregularities of the trial, it was just
a circus, and a month before the sentence was handed down the henchman
Camilo announced my sentence to me, with the number of years I would
serve. Is he psychic?

It can also be seen in the sentence, after the appeal and review, that I
was badly sentenced, but nonetheless they are not interested in amending
it. Anywhere in the world, that sentence should be thrown out. And in
front of the whole world, I ask for a new trial.

To make matters worse, the journalist Juan Carlos Linares Balmaseda,
from Cubanet, interviewed me. They immediately asked how it was possible
that he could have access to me. I urge those who have questions to ask
the journalist to see how terrified he was, and how he had to escape
before finishing so he wouldn't be arrested. In that interview he took a
picture, the one where I am at the end of the unit where they keep me
locked up, which adjoins a street and homes. That was the appropriate
space to do it.

Under my sentence (five years), I have the right to leave on a pass
every sixty days. After eight months in prison, I was awarded the first
pass and visited the home of Antonio Rodiles and in the happiness of
family, they gave me a cake and me took a portrait.

That day gave rise to more gossip, sowing doubts, saying I was released
and just pretending to be a prisoner, and so many stupid things that
they don't deserve mention. Then Aimara Pérez came to Cuba and spent a
day visiting my family. I allowed her to photograph me. This prison
settlement ends at the end of a street. Then some said I was in the
street. At the end there is a Girón bus they keep here, and others said
that the picture was taken on a public street. It is like looking for
the detail to fit the official version.

I have no doubt that those who are interested in these false details
have another interest which is not the freedom of Cuba. It only remains
to add that anyone who has any doubts can look for evidence on the
internet or can approach me, can find ways to reach me, and after that
conversation, then you will be allowed to issue an opinion supported by
your own inquiries.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Prison settlement of Lawton, January 2014

Source: Answering the Requests of Those Who Are Looking for Holes /
Angel Santiesteban | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/answering-the-requests-of-those-who-are-looking-for-holes-angel-santiesteban/