Javier Porro: Another Cuban prisoner under Hunger Strike

His only crime was to try to leave his home country in a rift, many Cubans has done it in despair to live a better lifewhen their country has became a huge prison to all of them. But Javiar Porro failed to reach American soil and was on the hands of his captors.. maybe too many times.

10 years this young man has been trying to leave Cuba in different ways. In one of his attempts he was caught, again, by a Cuban coastguard vessel and sent to jail. All his companions were freed but him, unable to betray who was in charge of the expedition.

In his last attempt he could reach Mexico with his pregnant wife and others Cubans, but because the agreement signed between Cuba and Mexico Javier Porro and his wife were sent back to Havana, requested by Cuban authorities, while the rest of his companions continued to USA. In Cuba, he was put in jail, faced three delayed trials by lacking Cuban officials of witnesses to condemn him.

At the end, and after a swift day in court, Cuban police sent him to jail where he has been under hunger strike for 50 days claiming his rights and a fair trial under Cuba's state-controlled judiciary system. Nothing has been done.

This is not a case treated by Cuba as a “political case”. Well, Cuba had never recognised anyone as a political case, even those who clearly and with no doubts are. But today, Javier Porro is a man at the stake of his death. Under a lengthy hunger strike, suffering peripheral neuropathy and unable to even walk, his life is in danger.

With him, many levels of justice had failed. First, the Mexican authorities who swiftly delivered him and his wife to the Cuban officials, letting the others run to the US.

What kind of reasons Mexico could allege for the treatment of a human being at risk in Cuban hands?

And second, and most important, why Cuba is particularly interested in a person who doesn’t want to live in his country? What kind of reasons could they allege?

To the international community, and in special to the UN, it is a shame how many cases had happened in the last two years with no condemnation of any of them, whatsoever.

How many more lives are we going to lose before United Nations and its regional organizations ask, publicly and clear, for a full supervision of the judiciary system in Cuba?

Besides, Cuba should be expelled from the UN body for being one of the biggest transgressors of Human Rights in the World. One life lost is enough to do that mandate.

The great Swiss-American psychiatrist, pioneer in Near-Death studies, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said:

“Watching a peaceful death of a human being remind us of a falling star: one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever.”

Javier Porro won’t be one of those falling stars that will flare up... not even a brief moment. He will died alone, between bars and probably with all his young hopes broken. Could we allow it?