The Real Island Prison

Things are getting worse in Cuba. An aging Castro cracks down on dissidents. A few years ago, some there hoped for more freedom, and petitioned for basic human rights, but were arrested and thrown into jail--journalists, librarians, doctors. I've never understood how liberals here can claim it's such a great place--high literacy and free health care, as if that means anything when your government pens you up in your own country and doesn't let you leave. And what kind of education can there be when you can't even criticize your own government?What good is literacy when you go blind from malnutrition? And what a mockery of a health care system when people go hungry? PRIMA news:

Regarding everyday problems, people said the major headache was job-related, i.e., meager salaries and difficulties to find employment according to their training. Hunger ranked second in the list of their problems.

Liberals complain about the US incarcerating terrorist suspects at Guantanamo. The island that Guantanamo shares is one big prison. The Tribune story, "Cuba sharpens dissident crackdown":

Cuban officials defend the island's human-rights record by saying they provide universal education, health care and other services. They portray the acts of repudiation as spontaneous outpourings of support for a system they describe as the world's most democratic and fair.

A spontaneous outpouring. We are to believe this. When one foot put wrong can land you in jail.
And here are the "democratic and fair" communist party members who enforce this system, neighbor to neighbor:

Castro supporters seem determined to defend the island's socialist system.

"I am a communist and a revolutionary," Maria Tomas, a 43-year-old state worker, declared proudly as she stood in the doorway of her apartment in the Havana neighborhood of Vedado.

In the past four months, Tomas has participated in three acts of repudiation against Dolia Leal, a neighbor and dissident whose husband, Nelson Aguiar, is one of the opposition activists imprisoned in 2003.

Leal said Tomas joined a crowd outside her apartment shouting "mercenary" and "traitor." The group warned Leal to stop marching on Sundays with "The Ladies in White" and, in late January, prevented dissidents from gathering at her apartment.

"I am very depressed and scared," said Leal, 61. "I am afraid they will attack me physically. They told me they are going to take drastic actions if I continue."

Tomas denied the pro-government crowd was aggressive or threatened Leal but said she would not be allowed to pursue her opposition activities.

"The people repudiate and reject whatever act that is against our revolutionary principles," she said. "We are going to continue doing what we have to do."

Threatening free-thinking women in the socialist paradise of Cuba.