One Year Later: Cuban Democratic Directorate Condemns Murder of Orlando Zapata Tamayo by Castro Regime
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Miami. February 23, 2011. Cuban Democratic Directorate. One year after his assassination by the Castro regime, Orlando Zapata Tamayo lives on in the Cuban resistance who continues its work by civic struggle for the freedom he defended up to his murder on February 23, 2010. 

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a valiant defender of the liberty of the Cuban people was murdered by the Castro regime which refused to guarantee respect for his basic rights. An Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Zapata Tamayo engaged in a hunger strike of over 80 days to demand such a guarantee and to protest against terrible mistreatment he suffered in the Communist regime’s prisons, including brutal beatings. Zapata Tamayo, who will be remembered as a giant of the Cuban resistance, had been unjustly imprisoned since March 20, 2003.

“Orlando Zapata Tamayo's sacrifice, his murder committed by the dictatorship when faced with his unbreakable resistance, marks a turning point in the Cuban people's struggle for its freedoms. Zapata marks the moment when the Cuban Resistance took the initiative, which it has not lost since,” said Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, Directorio’s National Secretary.

The Cuban Democratic Directorate underlines the fact that this crime joins a long list of atrocities committed by the Castro brothers, which include thousands of executions by firing squad and countless cases of unjust imprisonment of Cuban citizens.

In October, 2009, Zapata Tamayo was brutally beaten by military personnel at Holguin provincial prison, causing an internal hematoma in his head so severe that Zapata Tamayo had to undergo surgery. He began his hunger strike on December 3, 2009, at Kilo 8 prison in Camagüey, classified in Cuba as employing a “maximum severity” prison regime. For 18 days, Major Filiberto Hernández Luis, the prison’s director, denied Zapata Tamayo drinking water, the only thing he was ingesting during the strike. The effect of this act of torture was to induce kidney failure. In mid-January 2010, he was transferred to Amalia Simoni Hospital in the city of Camagüey, where he was left to languish nearly completely nude under intense air conditioning, causing him to contract pneumonia. Despite his critical health condition, the regime transferred him to the hospital at Combinado del Este prison, which did not have the equipment and conditions necessary to treat him.

The Cuban Democratic Directorate condemns this horrendous crime. We raise our voice to call for the condemnation of the Raúl Castro regime and those directly responsible for the death of this human rights defender for committing this crime against humanity.

Zapata Tamayo’s death will not be in vain. It will illuminate the path of Cuba’s civic resistance until the Cuban people achieve their freedom.

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Directorio Democrático Cubano
P.O. Box 110235
Hialeah, Florida 33011
Tel. 305-220-2713
info@directorio.org

In Memory of Mario Manuel de la Peña