captioning performed by vitac and demanding that cuba adopt reforms like those taking place in eastern europe. after being charged for, quote, oral minuenemy propaganda and sentenced to six years in prison, he started a hunger

strike that lasted 21 days. after serving 17 years, he was finally released in april of 2007. we welcome him as well. we are going to go obviously through a process under which our witnesses and our guests are going to be speaking in spanish. we are going to have an interpreter. we are going to start off with normando hernandez. i'm going to have to ask you as you go through your presentation to pause at times to give the interpreter a chance to interpret and so the transcript can be developed and so senator rubio may fully understand and for the members who have staff

here will know what you're saying as well. it will take a little bit of time but we look forward to your testimony and we thank you for your willingness to come ford. with that, mr. hernandez, we're going to start with you. if you can summarize your testimony around five minutes or so, we'll be a little flexible here, we don't always get these opportunities and then all of your testimony will be included in the record. with that -- [ speaking spanish ] >> honorary chairman hernandez, honorary member marco julio and members of the subcommittee. good morning. thank you very much for inviting me to testify. my name is normandeau hernandez and i am a journalist and an

expolitical prisoner from cuba, member of the group of '75. when arrest, the topic of this hearing, i did nothing but rejoice. events like this show the world that cubans are not alone on the difficult road to freedom. to be against cuba is to be against the totalitarian regimes of the brothers. i am still learning english so please allow me to continue in spanish.

>> translator: i would like to highlight the emergent and growing civil society in cuba as different from the so-called civil society of the past which was created and manipulated by the government. independent civil society in cuba is composed of self-created citizen groups established without authorization from the government to defend their interests before the state.

>> translator: this includes what is known today as the dissidents, peaceful opposition, the human rights movement, political parties, bloggers, and professional associations. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: the seed of this civil society was planted on january 28th, 1976 with the name of the cuban committee for human rights under the direction of dr. ricardo velez and a small

group of individuals. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: since its creation, the cube and committee for human rights has advocated for the respect of human rights in cuba and has denounced the flagrant violations that occur on the island. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: the profound political, economic and social crisis that the fall of the berlin wall created in cuba led many other cubans to create independent civil spaces,

independent from the government that is, in order to express their frustrations and search for alternative solutions to their problems. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: and thus hundreds of groups of differing professional and ideological streams began to emerge across the island. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: to give you an idea of the growth of the cuban civil society, in 2003 the institute of independent economists of cuba counted in a

census more than 29,000 citizens of members and supporters of more than 450 civil society organizations. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: one year before the christian liberation movement gave another sign of the growing strength of the dissidence in cuba by presenting before the national cuban assembly a petition signed by 11,020 citizens for a referendum on a series of political, economic and social rights.

[ speaking spanish ] >> translator: this growth of cuban civil society has occurred under a significant increase of repression by government authorities. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: perhaps the one emblematic case of this repression was the black spring of 2003 where 75 activist and civil society leaders, myself included, were arrested and convicted in summary trials and sentenced to lengthy and unjust prison sentences.

[ speaking spanish ] >> translator: this crackdown obviously was intended to eliminate the roots of the cuban civilian movement and instill fear in the population, but it only served as a call for many of the citizens to join in the search for freedom for the latest in independent bloggers movement. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: today cuban civil society finds itself in the face of dynamic and pluralist growth,

ever more aconscious of the rights to protect. civil activism increases every day. the cuban government uses tactics that can be considered state terrorism. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: a new model of repression consist of arbitrary detentions without a court order for small periods of time as a

mechanism of harassment, intimidation, psychological destabilization of the detainees and their family members to revent them from exercising their inalienable rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: in the first four months of this year, the cuban commission of human rights and national reconciliation an independent human rights organization in cuba documented 2,795 arbitrary detentions, an

increase from 58% from the same period the year before, 1,166. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: one of the cruelest facest of this repression is the repudiation rallies organized by the repressive forces of the castro brothers again the ladies in white. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: in the same way rapid response brigades, pairt military forces that serve the government, physically beat any independent, peaceful individual that tries to organize civil society activities.

[ speaking spanish ] >> reporter: the impunity of the repressors is an incentive for their actions. [ speaking spanish ] >> reporter: the castro brothers do not have limits to their cruelty. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: their murderous nature led them to execute thoughts of people at the beginning of the revolution. today they kill in a more subtle way. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: we must not forget the death under very strange circumstances of the leader of the ladies in white, in october 2011. [ speaking spanish ]

>> translator: also we cannot forget the deaths on hunger strike of political prisoners orlando who was denied water for 18 days and william in january 2012 who was tortured by being placed in a boarded up, dark, damp cell. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: juan wilfredo

soto, a peaceful activist died two days after the revolutionary. activist agents brutally beat him in 2007. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: in a recent report the united states committee against torture criticized the lack of independence between the executive, legislative and judicial branches, lack of

information on the deathnd police custody of juan wilfredo soto and requested an impartial investigation of the deaths of 202 prisoners that occurred in cuban jails between 2010 and 2011. [ speaking spanish ] >> reporter: extermination against those who descend and/or oppose the castros is the policy of the state. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: the path for a true cuban civil society is full of obstacles. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: violation of fundamental rights are enshrined in the constitution of the

republic of china. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: the penal code includes articles with ambiguous provisions such as precriminal social dangers, which are used to prosecutor civil society activists deemed by the government as dangerous. [ speaking spanish ] amnesty international estimates that there are around 5,000 prisoners in cuba serving sentences between one and four years for allegedly being socially dangerous and they serve their sentences alongside individuals whose crimes have been proven. [ speaking spanish ]

>> translator: in addition, law 88, the law for the protection of the national independence and economy of cuba, is another legal aberration by which the government curtails the fundamental and inalienable rights of cuban citizens. this law is nationally and internationally known as the censorship law. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: i hope you realize that this legal framework is tyrannical by

nature and it slashes away the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the cuban people. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: we can be ironic and say that in cuba the government does not violate human right, simply because human right do not exist. the regime of the castro brothers denies cubans their right to rights. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: in spite of this, cuban civil society advocates for the freedom of all cubans in a peaceful way based on the

precepts of non-violent struggle practice by gandhi and dr. martin luther king, jr. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: from civil society we see an increasing number of proposals aimed at improving the quality of life of all cubans from come tleet social vants for the government to expect human right and democratic values. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: in their fight

for democracy, cuban civil society has always advocated for national reconciliation and dialogue based on their respect of all human, civil and political rights as a necessary process to achieve a truly democratic cuba. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: to conclude, i would respectfully ask into practice title of this hearing. please show solidarity with a growing and genuine civil society and condemn all levels of depression in cuba.

[ speaking spanish ] >> translator: i encourage you to seek other democratic governments and parliamentarians from around the world, multi-lateral institutions and multi-lateral enjeels to support the true cuba. [ speaking spanish ] . [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: in this sense please take into account the worst of eli wiesel when he said

we must always take sides neutrality helps the oppressor. ak sich is the only remedy. >> translator: thank you very much. >> thank you. we appreciate your testimony. keep up your english. it was going pretty good there at the beginning. >> and now let me welcome the spokesperson for the national civic resistance front, a cuban pro-democracy leader. we will hear from her first and then we'll hear from a political activist inside of cuba who has sernd a long time in castro's jails. so with sadda we will need to do the the sang them.

we'll have you sko i what do you s say. >> i believe we have -- >> this is senator menendez. we can see you and hear you. we've asked you to start first. [ speaking span esh ]

>> translator: gong. i want to bring to your attention we have the patriotic union, mr. garcia, on the line. >> hello. >> yes, mr. garcia. [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: the interpreter would like to say that the sound quality is very poor so i'm doing my best. good afternoon to all of you. warmest greetings from all of

us, a peaceful activist in the eastern part of the country. go ahead. [ speaking spanish ]

>> translato [ speaking spanish ]

>> he has a lot to say obviously. >> translator: he does. i think we have audio problems. i would like to give you our warmest greetings here from all the activists and other groups that oppose the government that are so firmly and courageously fighting for this change that we very much need and we would like to remind you all that it's vital for the cuban people to have the support and solidarity from the free world, not only from our brothers and sisters in the u.s. but from all over the world because the cuban people is suffering a lot. we are facing a lot of challenges and mostly the mounting repression by the government and the never ending arrests. we have tons of activists that have been jailed arbitrarily and are considered now political prisoners and actually today we have fresh news, a new activist has been jailed