Real v. Fake Dissidents

Cindy Sheehan and other radical activists are currently in Cuba protesting the "Gulag" that is the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. As Walter Skold points out at Freadom, the wives of Cuban political prisoners wrote her a letter asking for her support. Unfortunately, Ms. Sheehan and her colleagues are so busy trying to get jihadists out of Gitmo that they can't be bothered to care about actual imprisoned dissidents. The New York Sun provides the details:

The Damas de Blanco, or Ladies in White, who march silently through the streets of Havana every Sunday in protest at the incarceration of political prisoners of the Castro regime, wrote a letter to Ms. Sheehan inviting her to visit Cuban prisons.

The Damas drew Ms. Sheehan's attention to the poor state of Cuban prisons, which they say lack clean drinking water and adequate food and where their relatives are imprisoned solely for speaking out against Fidel Castro's government.

The leader of Ms. Sheehan's trip, Medea Benjamin, said the American activists had not seen the letter and that they would be focusing solely on Guantanamo.


In the meantime, the BBC reports that a Cuban dissident has died of a heart attack after being denied the opportunity to seek medical treatment abroad:

Cuban dissident Miguel Valdes Tamayo has died of a heart attack, aged 50.

He was among a group of 75 activists jailed in 2003 for opposing President Fidel Castro, but was released on health grounds a year later.

His death in the capital, Havana, was announced by fellow dissident Maria Beatriz Roque.

She said Mr Valdes had been refused permission to seek treatment abroad. "It was a cruel action by the Cuban government," she told AFP news agency.


The next time people like Ms. Sheehan claim to be "dissidents", we should all remember the utter contempt they show towards real dissidents.