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URGENT CALL FROM RAUL RIVERO'S WIFE
By Blanca Reyes

Message sent by Blanca Reyes to the Summit "Toward Democracy in Cuba" celebrated in Prague, September, 2004.

Blanca Reyes, political prisoner Raul Rivero's wife

TO INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC OPINION

My husband, Cuban poet and independent journalist Raul Rivero, who is serving an unjust 20-year sentence for writing his points of view on the current Cuban situation, is in a delicate state of health and has lost more than 80 pounds in a year and a half. This past September 9th, the prison authorities informed him of the medical exam results following the grievances he had expressed during all this time. They diagnosed him with pulmonary emphysema, after he suffered two severe bouts of bronchial pneumonia, provoked by harsh prison conditions. According to the literature consulted, pulmonary emphysema is a chronic disease that can be accelerated if the patient is exposed to difficult conditions, and it can ruin the patient’s life.

Even so, the prison authorities denied the possibility of allowing him the medication I took him this past August 19 on our last visit. The brutal psychological pressure to which he is being submitted, undoubtedly approved at the highest levels of the government, range from a jailer diabolically fixated on him, the chastisement of not allowing him any more visits until the month of November, and the prohibition of other prisoners from addressing a word to him, under pain of being severely punished. Added to all this and more is a new element: the harassment he suffers from the common prisoners who allegedly have family members in the government and who answer to the names Eduardo Diaz Perez and Carlos Cruz Seguí. These men sow discord among other common prisoners to create conflict and disputes between them and Raúl Rivero. My husband is convinced that this new harassment is especially directed by State Security.

I take advantage of this occasion to call upon international public opinion and especially all the democratic governments of the world and all of my husband’s professional colleagues to redouble their efforts by all possible means and demand from the Cuban government in all forums and all communications media the urgent liberation of my husband, the poet Raul Rivero, whose physical well-being runs more serious risks now than ever before.

Fidel Castro Ruz is the only one responsible for my husband’s current state of health and the risks to which he is being exposed.

Help me free my husband!

Blanca Reyes

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