Dissident accuses Cuban government of harassing mother of deceased political prisoner

Havana, Cuba, Aug 17, 2010 / 09:54 am

The coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswald Paya, recently charged that the mother of a deceased political prisoner is being mistreated by the Cuban government. Paya noted that the harassment is preventing the mother of Orlando Zapata from even attending Mass.

Last February, Orlando Zapata died after a prolonged hunger strike. “Zapata gave his life voluntarily, but because of the cruelty and the crime of the regime, Zapata suffered until death for the dignity of Cubans, for the release of all political prisoners,” Paya stated.

Now, he continued, it is Zapata’s mother, Reina Tamayo, who “is being mistreated, harassed and repressed keeping her from going to church and from marching in the streets to make it known that her son died because of the government.”

Paya said that just as the movement supported her “to prevent her son from dying, so now we support her in her right to cry out for justice and to denounce the death of her son.”

The movement's coordinator also remarked that he was not able to make statements sooner “because the government cut the phone lines to my home after I gave an interview to the Spanish station Onda Cero.”

“The government has made me unreachable so that I could not speak to the press, so that I could not speak to my brothers who are going to be exiled,” he added.