Rep. Diaz-Balart pushes Cuba to free dissident journalist on hunger strike

Rep. Diaz-Balart pushes Cuba to free dissident journalist on hunger strike

Misael Canet has been on a hunger strike for 4 weeks
Miami congressmen says he's being held with no mattress, clothes
Congressman says Cuba has arrested 8,000 since rapprochement began
BY JAMES ROSEN
jrosen@mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart called Tuesday for the Cuban government to
release an independent journalist who stopped eating four weeks ago to
protest his Dec. 17 arrest.

Diaz-Balart, a seven-term Republican from Miami, said Misael Canet
Velázquez is being held "in abhorrent conditions in Camaguey's notorious
Kilo 8 prison without clothes or a suitable place to sleep, and has been
provided limited access to water."

The Cuban-American congressman's appeal came three weeks after he
demanded the release of another Cuban dissident, Vladimir Morera
Bacallao, who had posted a sign on his front lawn last April calling
municipal elections then taking place a sham. Morera has waged his own
hunger strike while in prison.

Canet is a leader of the National Front of Civic Resistance Orlando
Zapata Tamayo, a protest group based in southern Cuba. He's also a
reporter for the independent news agency Press Talk.

Kilo 8, one of a string of maximum-security prisons that dissidents
liken to the former Soviet gulag system, is in Canet's hometown of
Camaguey, the third-largest city in Cuba, with almost 350,000 residents.

Along with other dissidents, Canet was arrested Dec. 17 during a
demonstration in which they demanded the release of a human rights activist.

PRESIDENTS BARACK OBAMA AND RAÚL CASTRO SHOOK HANDS APRIL 11, 2015, AT
THE SUMMIT OF AMERICAS IN PANAMA, THE FIRST MEETING BETWEEN THE
COUNTRIES' HEADS OF STATE SINCE 1961.

Canet had been one of 20 signatories to a Jan. 17, 2014, proclamation in
which leaders of resistance organizations spelled out a common strategy
for defeating Cuban President Raúl Castro, who took over from his
brother Fidel when the revolutionary leader gave up the government reins
in 2008 because of illness.

Canet, who has been detained multiple times, began a hunger strike after
his most recent arrest.

Diaz-Balart said 8,000 dissidents had been arrested since President
Barack Obama declared his intention to normalize relations with Cuba on
Dec. 17, 2014.

"Shamefully, the dictatorship's human rights record has not improved,"
Diaz-Balart said. "In fact, several of the Obama-Castro 53 released
political prisoners have been rearrested."

Under a deal brokered by Pope Francis, the Cuban government released 53
political prisoners whose names had been provided by the U.S. State
Department. The two countries opened embassies in each other's capitals
in July, ending more than a half century of diplomatic estrangement.

James Rosen: 202-383-0014; Twitter: @jamesmartinrose

Source: Rep. Diaz-Balart pushes Cuba to free dissident journalist on
hunger strike | Centre Daily Times -
http://www.centredaily.com/news/nation-world/world/article55519855.html