Cuba Frees Rodiles, Charges Dropped
HAVANA TIMES — Antonio Rodiles, founder of a Havana audio visual project with guest panelists called Estado de Sats, was released from jail over two weeks after his arrest, his website reported on Monday.
Pro-government blogger Yoandry, had reported Rodiles would be charged with resisting arrest, which could have landed him a one-year prison sentence.
According to Estado de Sats, the unjustified charges could not be maintained by his repressors. Rodiles thanked those who had joined in demanding his release. He said he would immediately work on the next panel discussion program.
Also see “Antonio Rodiles Is Not Innocent.”
And, on recent times, ‘real bad’ Arabs on Guantanamo. How could I forget?
True, the Brazilian dictatorship of the 1970’s would not have treated him well. But then again, the Cuba of the 1970’s would have been much rougher with him too. The style of repression in Cuba has changed. Back in the day, dissidents would be tossed in prison a the slightest sign of protest. Sentences of 25 years were common. More recently, the regime seems to tolerate some low level of dissent for a while, keeping careful watch on who talks to whom. Then they usually sweep in and arrest the whole lot and toss them in jail. Some are released after a few days, a few more after a few weeks. A few months later, the whole process is repeated: repudiations, arrests, beatings, and release. Sometimes, for variety sake, the authorities like to mix it up a little and have beatings, then arrests and then release and finally more repudiations. Occasionally they even arrange for a nice car crash.
See? Things are changing.
And you are the most irritating Imperial mouthpiece I’ve ever known to be so sarcastic and cynical to the point of spitting your disgusting bile on every topic possible.
If this was Brazil in the 70’s the regime your ‘freedom loving’ country helped to install would have in these two weeks Rodiles to be hanged in a ‘pau-de-arara’, water-boarded, shocked in his genitals, his fingernails pulled, shot and then buried somewhere for nobody to ever find his body.
Then he’d be a real martyr.
It’s obvious you failed to see the heavy sarcasm in my last sentence. Mr. Rodiles was kicked and beaten and kept incarcerated for nearly 3 weeks. If he did plan to be arrested, he certainly didn’t plan to be beaten. You are too young to be so cynical. The point you fail to acknowledge is that the Castros are in a panic to salvage their regime. Agriculture production continues to fall, calls on foreign debt come in every day. There is plenty of oil nearby, they just can’t find it. And with Chavez in town for “treatment” the worse news may yet be to come. On top on all this, they make stupid mistakes like making martyrs out of Srta. Sanchez and Sr. Rodiles. Even their deals with the capitalist devils in Brazil will not stop their free fall. By the time all is said and done, Cuban leadership will be begging Miami to save their butts.
“Are we sure that Rodiles didn’t plan this?”
It’s possible. The small havoc that took place in front of the police station looks like it was pre-determinated, as it was one day after the US elections, enough time for some Republican asshat spill her bile on Obama. Maybe Rodiles got into a fight with a police officer knowing that he’d be kept in custody and interrogated for his connections with TV Marti and then released some time afterwards as there were no substantial charges against him in the first place.
He knows that if he gets an ingrown nail it’ll be on the first page of the newspapers while the children dying from Israel’s bombardments in Gaza will at best be a footnote.
I knew it right from the beginning of the whole story.
OK, let’s sum up what has taken place. The Castros arrest Rodiles on bogus charges. They beat him and hold him hostage for 19 days while the world watches. At the end, he is released and charges dropped. He leaves detention more internationally-well known and even more able to raise money for his cause. The Castros further prove how ineffectual and outdated their gulag-style detentions really are. Are we sure that Rodiles didn’t plan this?