After an attack there are certain myopics who blame the victim herself for what happened. If it is a woman who has been raped, someone explains that her skirt was very short or that she strutted provocatively. If it is a robbery, there are those who will say a flashy purse or shiny earrings provoked the criminal's greed. In the case of someone who has been the object of political repression, there is no lack of people who will justify it, saying that imprudence was the cause the such an "energetic" response. In the face of these attitudes, the victim feels doubly assaulted.
The dozens of eyes that watched as Orlando and I were forced into a car with blows would prefer not to testify, and so they put themselves on the side of the criminal.
The doctor who does not make a record of an act of physical mistreatment, having already been warned that in this "case" there must be no document to prove the injuries received, is violating his Hippocratic oath and, with that wink, becomes the culprit's accomplice. To those who feel there should be more bruises and even fractures before they can feel compassion for the person attacked, not only are they quantifying the pain, they are also saying to the attacker, "You have to leave more signs, you must be more aggressive."
Nor is there any shortage of those who are always going to assert that the victim inflicted the wounds upon herself, those who don't want to listen to the screams or the laments right next to them, but who emphasize and publish what happens thousands of miles away, under another ideology, another government. They are the same non-believers who thought that UMAP* was an enjoyable camp, combining military preparation and farm work. Those who still continue to believe that executing three men* was justified to preserve socialism, and that when someone punches a nonconformist it is because the latter was asking for it with her critiques. The eternal justifiers of violence are not convinced by any evidence, not even the brief initials R.I.P. on white marble. For them, the victim is the cause, the aggressor the mere executor of an obligatory lesson, a simple judge and corrector of our deviations.
Brief medical report
I am recovering from the physical injuries resulting from the abduction of last Friday. The bruises are lessening and what bothers me the most now is a sharp pain in the lumbar region which obliges me to use a crutch. Last night I went to the clinic and they treated me for the pain and inflammation. It is nothing that my youth and good health cannot overcome. Fortunately, the blow they gave me when they forced my head to the floor of the car has not affected my eye, only the cheekbone and the brow. I hope to have recovered in a few days.
Thank you to friends and family who have looked after and supported me, the effects are fading, even the psychological ones which are the hardest. Orlando and Claudia are still in shock, but they are incredibly strong and also will overcome it. We have already began to smile, the best medicine against abuse. The principal therapy for me remains this blog, and the thousands of topics still waiting to be touched on.
(Editor's note: Post dictated by telephone)
Translator's notes
UMAP = Military Units to Aid Production. Forced labor camps established in Cuba in 1965 under the banner of ideological rehabilitation. Inmates included a wide variety of "anti-social elements" as well as religious people and gays.
Executing three men = On April 2, 2003 a group of Cubans hijacked a ferry with about 50 people on it, planning to sail it to the United States. Just over a week later, Lorenzo Copello, Barbaro Sevilla and Jorge Martinez were executed for "grave acts of terrorism."
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
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In 2005 Castro self had ordered Cuba’s Emigration and Immigration Department the suppression of Hector Ramirez Cuban citizenship after the writer published his book “Cuba, an enslaved nation”.
Hector’s mother 75 years old suffered a pulmonary cancer and the imminence of her dead made Hector soliciting Cuba’s visa. Then the dictatorship played one of its preferred vendettas: To make Hector and his family inside Cuba believe he has got visa and make him spend huge amount of money in Cuban embassy paying for all permits, passport, fly tickets, etc; and make him believe he were authorized to meet his mother in order to make him suffer the deception.
Hector declared to his friends, “the most painful is not the several fly hours, neither the money or the fact that my dotter were all night long outside the airport crying but the deception suffered by my mother who also raised the hope of see me before die”
The young men who were killed and who live in the memory and gratitude of they countrymen were Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Acosta, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales. (Took from Diario de las Americas)
The hate and only the hate drove the tyranny to murder these young men. They with their daily work looking for and saving Cuban rafters did remind the world about the Cuban tragedy and did remind the tyranny about the desperation their abuses causes on Cuban people, abuses that makes the Cuban people prefer to die in the sea then continue living under such a calamity. It was unacceptable for the tyrant that 4 young men dare remind the world about his cruel nature and what the Cuban people was suffering, then he simply decide to kill them and so did it.
http://www.gacetaoficial.cu/ht.....l.html#A10
There you will find the following!!!!!
CHAPTER XVI: About illegal sacrifice of major cattle and meet transportation and sell.
Article 240.1 (modified)- Whom be found guilty of sacrificing major cattle without the state previous approval, shall be sentenced to imprisonment from 4 years up to 10 years
2.- Whom be found guilty of transporting and selling major cattle meet, shall be sentenced to imprisonment from 3 years up to 8 years
In other part of this Code you can find:
TITLE VIII: Crimes against the Life and Corporal Integrity
CHAPTER I: Homicide
Article 261: Whom be found guilty of killing another person, shall be sentenced to imprisonment from 7 years up to 15 years
So, what you find here is that a person who kill his own cow and goes by mom’s and left there a leg for the old lady soup, can be jailed for 18 years……….. and…………. a person that kills another person can be jailed for 7 years!!!!!!
In such surreal scenario you can find possible news like the followings:
Teacher in Havana that killed a 12 years old student beating his head with a chair is sentenced to 8 years in prison.
And
Farmer in Holguin sentenced to 12 years for killing his cow and "distribute" the meet among his family.
I hope you are feeling better soon.
If you want to appeal to more Cubans, you need to separate yourself from such criminals. The only people who would approve of such actions, are the extremists who should rightfully be in prison for activities that would land them in jail in virtually any country on Earth.