Declaration of Human Rights, international reports of human rights violations, and mainstream foreign newspapers and magazines constitute enemy propaganda. Local city officials inhibit freedom of speech by monitoring and reporting dissent or criticism. (US State Dept.) Police and state security officials regularly harassed, threatened, and otherwise abused human rights advocates in public and private as a means of intimidation. (US State Dept.) A court in Holguin sentenced independent journalist Mario Gonzalez Castellanos, Cuba Press correspondent in Holguin, to 2 1/2 years in the Holguin prison known as Cuba Si, for showing disrespect to Fidel Castor. (US State Dept.) The Constitution also includes dangerousness, defined as the special proclivity of a person to commit crimes, demonstrated by his conduct in manifest contradiction of socialist norms. (Human Rights Watch 42) If the police decide that a person exhibits signs of dangerousness, they may bring the offender before a court or subject him to therapy or political reeducation. There have been many cases in which officials have enforced these laws upon there citizens. In January in 1999, a court in Moron, a Cuban province, sentenced Jesus Joel Diaz Hernandez, Director of the Cooperative of Independent Journalists (an advocator of human rights) to 4 years' imprisonment for dangerousness. (Human Rights Watch 154) Human Rights Watch reported that Diaz was accused of having met with delinquents and having disturbed the public order. He was tried the day after his arrest, making it impossible for him receive adequate defense. (Human Rights Watch 154) In July of 1997, the authorities arrested independent journalist Lorenzo Paez Nunes and subsequently sentenced him to 18 months in prison. (Human Rights Watch 156) According to his family, Hector Peraza was arrested in July and detained for 2 months the day after he received a visit from a foreigner who gave him a computer. (Human Rights Wa...
