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“FREEDOM FOR LESTER GONZALEZ PENTON” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E2151 on Dec. 6, 2004.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FREEDOM FOR LESTER GONZALEZ PENTON
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HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART
of florida
in the house of representatives
Monday, December 6, 2004
Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about Lester Gonzalez Penton, a political prisoner in totalitarian Cuba.
Mr. Gonzalez Penton is a member of the Reason, Truth and Freedom Human Rights Movement and a delegate of the Cuban Confederation of Democratic Workers. He is a peaceful pro-democracy activist who has worked intensely to liberate Cuba from the control of the demented terrorist in power in Havana. Mr. Gonzalez Penton believes in human rights, worker rights, and freedom for the people of Cuba. As these tenants are the antithesis of the tyrant's policies of lies, fear, intimidation, and repression, he has been constantly harassed by the terrorist regime in Havana.
According to Amnesty International, on August 5, 2002, the tyrant's thugs prevented him from leaving his house, in order to stop him from participating in events organized by fellow pro-democracy activists. Previously, on July 9, 2001, Amnesty International reports that Mr. Gonzalez Penton was questioned and threatened with imprisonment by police if he did not work: despite the fact that he was fired him from his job as a baker because the totalitarian regime was threatened by his peaceful activities with the Cuban Confederation of Democratic workers.
On March 18, 2003, as part of the dictatorship's deplorable crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy activists, Mr. Gonzalez Penton was arrested. In a sham trial, he was sentenced to 20 years in the grotesque totalitarian gulag. According to the U.S. Department of State, members of the tyrant's totalitarian apparatchik threatened to suspend family visits for Mr. Gonzalez Penton because he, and eight other political prisoners, read aloud to each other from the Bible.
Mr. Speaker, it is an affront to the inalienable rights of man that Mr. Gonzalez Penton is languishing in the inhuman squalor of a totalitarian gulag simply because he believes that liberty is the scared right of all people. It is unconscionable that he and others have been further punished because they read the Bible. My colleagues, we must demand the immediate release of Lester Gonzalez Penton and every political prisoner suffering under the nightmare that is the Castro regime.
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