Cuban Prison Hunger Striker Orlando Zapata Tamayo Dies

Sure. because Fidel was speaking with authority on the subject, I thought he might already have the details. I'll double check and let you know.

Quote:

He was not convicted of letter writing he was convicted of Disrespecting the Government.  In Canada it is called Contempt of Court and is virtually the same crime.

Except that we maintain a separation between the Judicial branch and the government. Would you (and I'm actually asking) support the prosecution of a Canadian for disrespecting Stephen Harper's government? Like, if Stevie said "Stop criticizing me for prorogueing" and someone refused to? I would find that chilling. And we'd all find this place nearly empty.

Quote:

And what do you think our prison officials response would be to aboriginal protesters who want to be treated differently in our jails because they were arrested for refusing to stop protesting the theft of their lands and resources by multi-national corporations.

To build Healing Lodges, support special spirituality and community based programs for Aboriginals, and other similar different treatment that we actually already do?

Quote:

you only seem to have a problem when the protests are protesting to bring about a regime change you want.

Actually, no.

I couldn't care less about the political opinions of others. I care about their actions. When I "have a problem" with a protest, it's not because I don't want people to believe what they believe, it will be because of what they've done in order to convince others. And I really don't mind if the law takes the same approach. I'm not the thought police, and I don't want the government to be the thought police either. Action police I'm OK with.

He was not convicted of letter writing he was convicted of Disrespecting the Government.  In Canada it is called Contempt of Court and is virtually the same crime.  Note that the only mens rea required is that you know you have been told to stop and you openly defy the court.  Also of interest is the fact that writing letters if they bring the courts into disrepute is also a crime in Canada.

And what do you think our prison officials response would be to aboriginal protesters who want to be treated differently in our jails because they were arrested for refusing to stop protesting the theft of their lands and resources by multi-national corporations.

You don't like the Cuban system so you presume it is illegitimate but in Canada where we have at least as many restrictions on our rights you accept that as justifiable to enhance peace order and good government.  

I personally don't like either the Canadian or the Cuban method of dealing with dissidents but you only seem to have a problem when the protests are protesting to bring about a regime change you want.

</p> <p> </p> <p>An intent to bring a court or judge into contempt is not an essential element of the offence of contempt of court. That was decided in R. v. Hill (1976), 73 D.L.R. (3d) 621 (B.C.C.A.). McIntyre J.A., speaking for a unanimous court said at p. 629:</p> <p>Even, however, if the cases could not be distinguished on their facts, it is my opinion that an intent to bring a Court or Judge into contempt is not an essential ingredient of this office. In Canada the proposition stated in R. v. Gray, [1900] 2 Q.B. 36 at p. 40, by Lord Russell of Killowen has been accepted. He said:</p> <p><strong>Any act done of writing published calculated to bring a Court or a judge of the Court into contempt, or to lower his authority, is a contempt of Court. That is one class of contempt. Further, any act done or writing published calculated to obstruct or interfere with the due course of justice or the lawful process of the Courts is a contempt of Court.</strong></p> <p>These words have received the approval of the Supreme Court of Canada in Poje et al v. A-G. B.C. (1953), 105 C.C.C. 311 and in Re Duncan (1957), 11 D.L.R. (2d) 616. In my view, they express the law as it now stands in this country.</p> <p>The word "calculated  as used here is not synonymous with the word "intended". The meaning it bears in this context is found in the Shorter Oxford English dictionary as fitted, suited, apt.....</p> <p>[28]   As to the <em>mens rea </em>of the crime of criminal intent, the law was neatly summed up by Hill J. in <em>R. v. Peel Regional Police Service </em>where at page 17 he stated:</p> <p><strong>The mens rea of the crime of criminal contempt, the intention or mental state of </strong><strong>the alleged contemner, may be wilfull or knowing behaviour or reckless disregard</strong><strong> or indifference that the conduct at hand would tend to undermine the authority of the court</strong>: United Nurses of Alberta v. Attorney-General of Alberta (1992) 71 C.C.C. (3d) 225... As stated by McLachlin J. at 253 of the United Nurses of Alberta decision:</p> <p><strong>Therefore, when it is clear the accused must have known his or her act of defiance will be public, it may be inferred that he or she was at least reckless as to whether the authority of the court would be brought into contempt.</strong>  [quote]</p> <p><a href="http://www.theinquiry.ca/Contempt.hide.php">http://www.theinquiry.ca/Contempt.hide.php</a></p> <p> </p> <p><strong></strong><strong></strong><strong></strong></p> <p> </p> <p>[quote wrote:

Zapata jailed since March 2003, had gone on a hunger strike to protest against prison conditions which denied him the choice of wearing white dissident clothes instead of prison uniform. 

This may help things: www.therealcuba.com/

RosaL wrote:

K.E. Smith wrote:

This may help things: www.therealcuba.com/

You have opened my eyes. I particularly recommend the Glenn Beck video  [/quote]

I can kind of excuse a little nuttiness amongst some of the Cuban exiles. "Those to whom evil is done do evil in return" and all that.

Generation Y however is a good blog about what's really going on in Cuba (and no, there's nothing even remotely like Glenn Beck there).

Not sure what the video has to do with Cuba, as far as I know Beck has not been tossed in jail for airing his views or other peoples views that are critical of the US government.

NoDifferencePartyPooper wrote:

wrong thread - try 'American Genocides'  this is the one about the brutal treatment and death of a black prisoner in Cuba

Yes the USSA immediately condemned the jailing of Cuba's dissidents at the end of the Cason affair. And then 9/11 happened, and the USSA immediately threw somewhere around 1000 people into gulags and started planning for war against another unseen enemy repersenting no particular country and necessitating random targeting of various resource-rich or geostrategically significant countries by US Pentagon capitalists But when Cubans become paranoid about US-based terror murdering at least as many Cubans over ten or twenty years, it's the Cubans who are running a paranoid national security state. It all makes sense now.

Why, it's a common occurrence for democratic countries to order mafia hits on other countries' leaders...more than 600 times, and murder 3000 plus nationals of Caribbean countries 90 odd miles from the bankrupt terrorist haven that is Florida. Happens all'a time. What? Cason was only trying to help the dissidents spread democracy to Cuba, right? Ya goto hell and back Fuckers!

NoDifferencePartyPooper wrote:

I don't think that Cubans are "running a paranoid national security state". Do you?  I also don't think it's right to mistreat a human being in the way that Orlando Zapata Tamayo reportedly was. Do you?

See it's this "reportedly" thing that's bothering me. It's not a negligible issue. 

RosaL wrote:

It's hard to trust a [url=http://cruzarlasalambradaseng.wordpress.com/2010/01/]source[/url] (cited by NoDifferenceetc) that says things like this:

Quote:

the abuses against students by Chavez’s police for voicing their disagreement about the closure of the television station RCTV International, one of dissenting voices against the petro-communist kitsch of ALBA

Well we all know Chavez is another Hitler as Venezuela's still privatized and still rightwing propagandists RCTV has compared him to. And Chavez has been seen hanging around the beard in Cuba. It's a communist plot-conspiracy concocted by doctor evil, mini-me, simon bar sinister and the rest of the axes of evol.

The CIA and its front news agencies wrote that many of them claimed to be legitimate news journalists and writers. Philip Agee said only one or two were actually educated and trained to be professional news journalists.

[url=http://www.canadiannetworkoncuba.ca/Documents/Petras-1may03.shtml]American dissident James Petras[/url] wrote in 2003:

James Petras wrote:

Washington's Cuban functionaries were supplied with electronic and other communication equipment by USAID, books and other propaganda and money to fund pro-U.S. "trade unions" via the U.S. front, the "American Center for International Labor Solidarity". These are not well-meaning "dissidents" unaware of their paymaster and their role as U.S. agents, since the USAID report states (under the section entitled "The US Institutional Context"), "The Cuba Program is funded through Economic Support Fund, which is designed to support the economic and political foreign policy interests of the US by providing financial assistance to allies (sic) and countries in transition to democracy".

No country in the world tolerates or labels domestic citizens paid by and working for a foreign power to act for its imperial interests as "dissidents". This is especially true of the U.S. where under Title 18 ,Section 951 of the U.S. Code, "anyone who agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official would be subjected to criminal prosecution and a 10 year prison sentence". Unless, of course, they register as a paid foreign agent or are working for the Israeli government.

The U.S. "progressive" intellectuals abdicate their responsibilities as analysts and critics and accept at face value the State Department characterization of the U.S. paid functionaries as dissidents striving for "freedom".

Some defenders of the U.S. agent-dissidents claim that the functionaries received "scandalously long sentences". Once again empirical myopia compounds mendacious moralizing. Cuba is on a war footing. The Bush government has declared that Cuba is on the list of military targets subject to mass destruction and war. And in case our moralistic intellectuals don't know it : What Bush, Rumsfeld and the war-mongering Zionists in the Administration say -- they do.

U.S. "agent-dissidents" Apparently the vicious empire was directly responsible for the agent-dissidents incarceration in Cuba. They weren't jailed for writing poetry. Under USSA's own legal definition, their paid agents in Cuba are not dissidents but rather unregistered agents of a foreign government - the U.S. Government.

Fidel wrote:

If I were the Gringos and cared anything about the Cuban "dissidents" I betrayed...

Fidel wrote:

... be rewarded by the Gringos ...

Correct me if I am wrong, but "gringo" is an offensive term, either for "foreigner" or simply for "American". Correct me if I am wrong again, but such terms should not be used on Babble.

There are Gringos Tex-Mex eateries and restaurants in the USA and Canada. I myself am not offended by the term, even though I have American relatives. And they would most likely laugh it off themselves.

USA! USA! USA!

NoDifferencePartyPooper wrote:

No innuendos from you and I have your question

The links and info here is all that we both have unless and until you I or someone else finds more . . Posts: 10#, 14#, 20# certainly suggest mistreatment occurred. It is always difficult in cases where the alleged abuser is the state itself which prevents, hinders or suppresses investigation. As well it has a powerful enemy with demonstrated malevolence.  I share concerns about sources and authenticity generally and will keep eyes open for more. It's all one can do without actually being there.

Thanks! I certainly agree that it's difficult to get accurate information. Or to know when you have accurate information

Fidel wrote:

There are Gringos Tex-Mex eateries and restaurants in the USA and Canada. I myself am not offended by the term, even though I have American relatives. And they would most likely laugh it off themselves.

USA! USA! USA!

The fact that you are not yourself offended by the term does not mean that it is not offensive. It is a pejorative term used to denote members of a particular national group. As such, it is offensive whether you or your friends are offended by it. I could be mistaken: perhaps the term "gringo" is value-neutral and is not pejorative. But if it is pejorative, as I believe it to be, then it is offensive. The fact that some people use this word for their eateries does not detract from its offensiveness.

I think it's excessive even for a progressive leftwing forum. I've already agreed in another thread not to describe US client states around Latin America as human rights shitholes. At what point are we gilding the lily when it comes to the vicious empire's criminal foreign policies for the backyard?

Fidel wrote:

The Miami Herald? 

Now that's a source I don't place much faith in.

torontoprofessor wrote:

I am in favour of strongly and urgently criticizing the decisions, actions, laws and policies of the US government. But I am strongly against using offensive slurs for Americans.

The same goes for any other country: If their decision, actions, laws and policies are offensive, I am in favour of strongly criticizing them. But I would be strongly against using offensive slurs for the citizens of that country. I sure hope, for example, that we can criticize the policies of the Chinese government without using the ch-word, and of the German government without using the kr-word.

What about the term 'Yanqui imperialist pigs'?  How could someone possibly confuse that reference to US ruling elite with the average American who has no real say and no real vote in the matter?

How many more rabidly rightwing sites can you possibly refer us to? Sheesh! I'm beginning to understand what your thing with the NDP is all about.

Doug wrote:

Lobbyists paid by foreign governments are allowed in the states as long as they declare it. There's an awful lot of it too.  See here: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fara/

I also seriously doubt you'd get 30 years for violating those laws too. More like a year at the nice country club prison for white-collar criminals.

US criminal code states that operating on US soil as a paid agent of a foreign government is punishable by ten years in prison. That is unless they are registered with US Government or are working for the Israeli government. Again, Cuba is the only country in the world that has direct representation in US Government, and it's a strange situation.

Too, US hawks are claiming that the Cuban Five antii-terrorist agents for countering US-based terrorism against Cuba were not registered foreign agents operating in Florida, but other sources say that's not true either including at least one Nobel peace prize winner who acted as a liason between the Cubans and US-FBI during the last years of the Clinton administration. [url=http://www.freethefive.org/]Ramón receives 30-year sentence; Fernando 17 years 9 months[/url]

And from Petras' essay on Cuba's dissidents:

James Petras wrote:

Let us remember the same progressive [U.S.] intellectuals supported "dissidents" in Eastern Europe and Russia who were bankrolled by Soros and the U.S. State Department. The "dissidents" turned the country over to the Russian mafia, life expectancy declined five years ( over 10 million Russians died prematurely with the sacking of the national health system), while in Eastern Europe "dissidents" closed the shipyards of Gdansk, enrolled in NATO and provided mercenaries for the U.S. conquest of Iraq. And never among these current supporters of Cuban "dissidents" is there any critical reflection on the catastrophic outcomes resulting from their anti-communist diatribes and their manifestos in favor of the 'dissidents' who have become the soldiers of the U.S. Middle Eastern and Central European empire.

Sven wrote:

I'm just curious, Fidel: Are there even just two or three things that the Castro regime does regarding which you have any significant criticisms?

Very many of the roads and buildings in Cuba are in varying states of disrepair. Things could be a lot better in Cuba, and I think that could be remedied if certain richest countries in this hemisphere actually practiced free trade between countries and demonstrated good will toward countries like Cuba.

 I just find it a terrible irony that our RCMP lackies and American FBI would guarantee passage into the USA of someone like Ali Mohamed, a double agent and Al-Qaeda plane hijacking specialist, and that the USA continues to protect and harbor Luis Posada Carriles, who confessed openly and proudly to bombing a Cubana Aviation passenger jet and murdering 73 innocent Cuban men, women, and children in the process. And yet our rightwing whacko neighbors would imprison five Cuban counter-terrorism agents for 30 YEARS and even a life sentence for one. Are the crazies running your country at all interested in stopping terrorism, iyho, Sven?