Peaceful Resistance
Movement urgently requests world solidarity for the memory of Wilman Villar
Mendoza
January 20,
2012
Cuban human rights
defender, Wilman Villar Mendoza, who
had been admitted in critical state to the Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital in Santiago
de Cuba on January 14 following a 50 day hunger strike (begun November 25,
2012), died on the evening of Thursday, January 18, 2012 of a multiple organ
failure and a generalized sepsis.
Wilman Villar
Mendoza, who was 31 years old and a member of the human rights group UMPACU
(Union Patriotica de Cuba) began a hunger strike in the Prison of Aguadores on
November 25, 2011 to protest the false accusations that led to his unjust
incarceration and to demand his unconditional freedom. Wilmar was beaten and
arrested following a public peaceful protest in the eastern town of
Contramaestre on November 14, 2011, and sentenced in a trial he called a
“judicial farce” to four years in prison. He was charged with “refusing to obey
an official” (desacato), “resistance” (resistencia), and “assault”
(atentado).
As most members of
the peaceful resistance movement in the island, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, leader of
UMPACU, holds the Cuban government directly responsible for the demise of this
peaceful human rights defender. Numerous
activists across Cuba declared themselves in mourning and said this sad event
unites them even more to continue defending the cause of human rights in
Cuba.
The death of Wilman
Villar Mendoza did not come about fortuitously nor is it an isolated case. The
same terror tactics of mental and physical torture to subdue a political
prisoner that have been systematically applied in Cuban prisons and which were
applied to Orlando Zapata Tamayo,
(who died on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike) were also
practiced on Wilman:
·
Accused of being a
common criminal
·
Isolated in a humid
punishment cell
·
Confined
naked
·
Deprived of water and
medical assistance
·
Transferred to a
medical facility once he is in a critical state of health
Wilmar’s widow, Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales, who is a
“Lady in White”, is presently
being denied access to her husband’s
body and the Cuban government has unleashed a wave of repression throughout Cuba
as members of the peaceful resistance movement are trying to pay their last
respects to their compatriot. The Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital is surrounded by
military guards. Liudmila Rodriguez
Palomo reported that State Security agents in patrol cars, carrying sticks
and stones, violently arrested activists in the Eastern city of Palma Soriano.
The house of Jorge Luis Garcia Perez
Antunez and his wife, Yris Tamara
Perez Aguilera in the Central city of Placetas is surrounded by State
Security agents.
For months, the
Coalition of
Cuban-American Women has been alerting
the international community that the lives of those human rights defenders who
are publicly struggling on behalf of fundamental freedoms in Cuba are in danger.
We urgently call on religious, civic, political and cultural entities and its
leaders, as well as the media and the non-governmental human rights
organizations worldwide, to recognize and display their solidarity on behalf of
these men and women who are sacrificing their lives for the cause of human
rights in Cuba.
FURTHER
INFORMATION IN CUBA: Berta
Soler +5352906820 /
José
Daniel Ferrer - + 53 53631267 / Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales + 5353842338 /
Iris T. Perez Aguilera +5352417749
/ Jose Luis Garcia Perez “Antunez” +5352731656
Coalition blog: www.coalitionofcubanamericanwomen.blogspot.com
Facebook: Coalition of Cuban-American Women
Twitter: @COCAW1
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