Center for a Free Cuba

Moralinda Paneque returned home extremely distressed and worried after her last scheduled family visit to her son on Monday, May 5, 2008, in the Prison of Las Mangas. “ I anticipated an improvement in his health but that wasn’t at all what I witnessed…”

Dr. José Luis García Paneque’s semblance was a shock to his mother, father and sister, “…my son resembles a skeleton…he barely has any fat under his skin…he has stick like thighs, his backbone protrudes as he bends over…he is emaciated to the point that his stomach is almost touching his backbone…his skin color is very strange to me…I would describe it as grayish blue…”.

The 42-year old Cuban prisoner of conscience who weighs a little over 100 pounds told his family that he continues bleeding daily through the rectum, a complication related to the malabsorption syndrome he suffers from, an illness that he developed in prison and which does not allow the food he ingests to nourish his body.

Dr. García Paneque also expressed that he is having trouble sleeping at night since the common prisoners he is forced to share a barrack with make loud noises as they play games throughout the night.

Dr. García Paneque was arrested on March 18, 2003, and sentenced to 24 years in jail during the wave of repression that the Cuban government carried out against members of the civil society who were promoting independent ideas on the island.

The wife and four children of this Cuban doctor were forced to seek exile in the United States on March 8, 2007, because of the violent acts of repudiation that were being carried out against their home by mobs instigated by Cuban State Security.

Dr. García Paneque’s family makes an URGENT APPEAL to the international community since they fear for the safety and physical and psychological well-being of this Cuban physician who is unjustly imprisoned in a maximum-security prison for peacefully defending the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in his own country.

Information obtained from Mrs. Moralinda Paneque via telephone from Las Tunas, Cuba, by the Coalition of Cuban-American Women / LAIDA CARRO / E-mail: joseito76@aol.com / FAX: 305-740-7323

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 5:10 pm and is filed under English, News of the Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.