No to the Life Sentence of Citizen Rights

No to the Life Sentence of Citizen Rights / Cuban Law Association
Cuban Law Association, Rodrigo Chavez Rodriguez, Translator: Maria Montoto

By Atty. Rodrigo Chavez Rodriguez

Prison is not the only captivity of an existence.

An unhappy multitude marches dragging the misery of its moral life,
chained to its ignorance and defenselessness.

Prisoners without hope and without solace: slaves without redemption and
without relief, traveling on this boat of society lacking faith, orphans
of will, with null understanding, blind to reason and alien to the
rights they should know and defend.

Upon initiation of the shipwreck, they are the first victims because it
falls upon them, due to their ignorance and their lack of educational
preparation, to serve as a bridge for the salvation of others, to be a
step for others to ascend.

That is the major captive, the eternal prisoner, the slave without horizons:

The one who groans under the shackles of their intimate sentence;
because lacking will and character, without the light of intelligence,
without knowledge of their own soul and being denied their human and
constitutional rights, they lack liberty of conscience and become one
forced to the opprobrious bench of the strange galley, where screaming
and with a level of public announcement increasingly encompassing
demands: we want justice, THE TRUE JUSTICE AND LIBERTY OF THE CITIZENS.

We Cubans have had imposed upon us faking or simulating something with
which we are not truly in agreement. The fear and lack of knowledge
which exempt no one from responsibility in life, do not permit
establishing a system of inquiry or dialogue, because we would not know
if the responses are in keeping with the truth or with the double
standards, so rooted in personal interests.

Not only are they hypocrites those who tell lies feigning good faith,
but also those who know they are lies and pretend they are truths. Worse
yet, they become merged with the falsehood.

It is an ill planted in Cuban society by an ideology and principles that
do not accept difference of opinions, a situation which clearly
manifests the disrespect and the violation that rides roughshod over the
most basic civil rights of our population. What will become of Article
54 of our Law of Laws:

The rights of assembly, protest and association are exercised by the
workers – laborers and intellectuals, farmers, women, students and other
sectors of the working public – for which they have use of the means
necessary for such ends. The mass and social organizations can make use
of all the facilities for the development of these activities and so
that their members may enjoy the greatest degree of FREEDOM OF SPEECH
AND OPINION, based on the unlimited RIGHT to initiative and criticism.

Lying, along with hypocrisy and a double standard, continues to be
another irreparable evil. Institutions themselves make use of it daily.
It is a means of survival used to put to rest or to hide many truths
which constitute CRIMES and that have led many Cubans to death, exile or
prison. It is a means that has led to to the separation of families and
the rupture of their emotional bonds. I cite the following:

Article 35. The State shall protect the family, motherhood and matrimony.

The State recognizes the family as the fundamental unit of society and
attributes to it essential functions in education and the formation of
new generations.

Our opinions are deemed as trash and lies paid for by the U.S.
government, however the high level of acceptance of these by the people
cannot be hidden, because they thirst for information and legal
instruction, for knowledge of legal procedures, for justice and in
general, for all of their citizen rights.

Every person has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this
right is inclusive of not being disturbed as a result of their opinions,
that of investigating and receiving information and opinions, and that
of diffusing them without limitation of borders, by whatever means of
expression, Article 19 UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS.

Almost the entire nation has been turned into pretenders, although they
have been demonstrating criticisms of nonconformity that were once
highly dangerous, such as: "I didn't know!", "If only someone had told
me!", "Where I go, no one clarifies or explains things to me.", "How
much longer, what is going on?", "Who will resolve my problem?", "I've
had it, that's enough!"

The methods of mis-information of the Government that repeats daily
about the economic, political and social problems of all of the
capitalist countries and that justifies its actions against the people
by using what happens in other parts of the terrestrial globe. It's the
same old same old. The truth is that what we are most interested in are
the millions of problems which we Cubans face daily and, if you please,
the question is forced but the reply is unseen: How Much Longer?

The struggle to maintain the political system, and not that of
benefiting the country and its people, is the first goal on behalf of
the Leaders, but without any doubt to also keep them handicapped of
hearing and sight to what occurs in the country. This brings with itself
among other things, the lack of knowledge of the laws and their
procedures, of the knowledge of Legality and the ways and methods of
imparting Justice; as well as their Constitutional and Human Rights.

Additionally, but in the same way and style, we put up with listening
and reading of the priority to JUDICIAL SERVICES, in the informational
spaces of Cuban Television such as Mesa Redonda (Roundtable), in the
words of judicial star Maria Esther Reus Gonzalez, … We HAPPEN UPON a
wide range of functions and services to persons natural and legal in the
country… It is fundamental in our current daily work to detect an action
that goes against ethical principles, to carry out an even greater
effort to develop strategies in order to perfect the Services and
continue decentralizing and extending them… We have identified our
vulnerabilities and with the valuable human capital we have, we will
struggle to perfect our daily activities and achieve the satisfaction
that our people deserve. It is furthermore explained that the quality of
legal services is not yet optimal, that more jurists are needed and that
which in Cuba should be at the level of the culture, the conscience
acquired by our people (?) and will satisfy the needs in this matter.

Recently I have seen on banners and signs and have heard from the
newscasters in the Primero de Mayo parade – the day of workers, by the
workers and for the workers – that: WORK IS THE ONLY FOUNTAIN OF WEALTH.
Could it be that the Cuban Legal Association may at some time be
wealthy? Well I affirmatively believe that we already are, as long as
they allow us to reach our objectives with an affirmative response of
its legalization for the well-being of those who truly will be rich.
Rich and knowledgeable of their legitimate rights, of the proceedings
and in most instances their disrespected terms, of the manipulations and
intricacies by Judges and Tribunals at any level, of the abusive actions
on occasion by Agents of Interior Order and the officials who should
take care of our Security of State, without fear I say in that manner we
will be very rich and will have enough to share mutually and
internationally.

We have not saved all justice, but we must save that justice which we
have already conquered.

Translated by: Maria Montoto

May 23 2012

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