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Cuba Jails US Worker Handing Out Laptops, Cellphones
eldavojohn writes "An American citizen working as a contractor for the United States Agency for International Development has been arrested for giving away laptops and cellphones in Cuba. The intent was to enable activists to connect with each other and spread information of what's happening inside Cuba. From the article: 'Cellphones and laptops are legal in Cuba, though they are new and coveted commodities in a country where the average worker's wage is $15 a month. The Cuban government granted ordinary citizens the right to buy cellphones just last year; they are used mostly for texting, because a 15-minute phone conversation would eat up a day's wages.' A Representative on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said the arrest was 'no surprise' while a human rights watch group cited a report outlining the Cuban Criminal Code offense of 'dangerousness,' which is most likely the one for which this individual was detained. There is at present no way to contact the individual nor official word on why he was detained." The article quotes an actvist with Human Rights Watch who said that "any solution to the contractor's case would probably be political" and that "the Cuban government often provokes a negative reaction in the United States just as [the two] countries begin to move toward more dialogue."
His health care while in prison will be better than that he would have in the US and is free.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
> One does wonder what would happen if an Iranian or Iraqi came into America and provided material means for
> people to rebel, overthrow, dissent terrorise the American government?
And this kids is why you shouldn't grow up to be a marxist whore. You have to do crap like this, attempting to equate the US and Cuban system to make a case there is no real difference. Night and fricking day dude.
Perhaps you missed the President of Iran openly speaking here in the US? Not just at the UN, but at a major US University. Hell, take a look in the Middle Eastern Studies dept of most any US institution of higher education and you can find terrorist symps holding forth daily before captive audiences.
The Fracking Fundi Saudi Islamists openly operate schools in the US and teach jihad.
I don't want Nancy Pelosi in prison, I just want her removed from office. If you can't see that fundamental difference in the two political systems there just is no hope for ya.
> Maybe a book on how to achieve things?
We don't need to import that stuff, we have tenured professors like William Ayers not only writing how to manuals but actually regretting not blowing more shit up.
Democrat delenda est
'raped their daughter' ok whatever you say to add a little drama to it
Also I didn't capitalize 'little' in 'little Havana' like you did, don't put words in my mouth. I used the term as a description of what Cuba would have been if they hadn't chose Fidel.
Also I dare you to go down to 'Little Havana' in Miama, Florida and tell all those old Cubans why you think Fidel is so great. I bet you will not walk away without a black eye or your head up your ass. My buddy dated a cuban girl and we went over there for a barbecue once, their family and grandfater hated Fidel to the heart.
What... As compared to when Fidel came into power and if you talk against him you get locked up or they throw you on a half sinking junk boat ejecting you from the island out to sea. Hopefully they float to America so they are their problem or maybe they just float out at sea to die.
haha are you kidding, are you really trying to defend a guy who disposes of people who talk against them by throwing them out to sea and hoping they are somebody else's problem.
In fact the infastructure that the mafia built up still lasts to these days and they use it
Pictures speak a thousand words compared to the crumbling and rusting that is Cuba today. The people are suffering and 38% of the Cuban youth have left he country. I have talked to ex-Cuban patriots and they do not admire what came with Fidel and the way communist corrupted that place, they are confused why people who have not been there or lived there defend them.
1950's Havana, Cuba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xShhFCoj_E&feature=related
A lot of corruption went on back than, unfortunately the people believed Fidel's lies and false hopes of change that he was going to bring.
Point still stands, times were better when the Mafia ran it. The mafia would have faded out anyways and the people could have actually made something of themselves, they chose the later worse of the choices of the never ending Castro empire.
Well the people got what they wanted
Misery
People disappearing
Economy in crumbles
No electricity for 23 hours of the day
Food shortages
Failing socialism
WOOHOO GOOD TIMES!!
You can even watch a modern video of them walking down the streets of the crumbling of the country that was caused by Fidel, read the comments of ex-Cubans who say they used to live on those same blocks and how beautiful the good times were.
A Walk in Havana, Cuba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrxhRUMr1a4
On what world do you spend most of your time on?
Please take off the shades and stop turning a blind eye to the obvious stuff.
I am sure Fidels little brother will allow some authorized citizen to make an authorized comment on how good things are over there.
As you say "There is a reason..."
Well there is a reason why the Cuban people are suffering *now* and don't give me the bull crap answer of the embargo, it's not our job to keep their economy afloat by tourism because they produce nothing else except misery and rubble.
On what world do you spend most of your time on?
At the risk of joining the flame war about free speech, I wanted to say that I appreciate free speech, and the USA clamps down on it from time to time, just as all countries do.
Don't believe me? Think about this.
As a journalist I travelled into the USA recently. Apparently as part of the US "war on terror" foreign journalists are now required to explain why they are entering the United States. They have to explain details of any stories they want to work on, and say which states I was travelling in. This is designed apparently to stop the wrong type of reporters getting news out of America.
This is nothing new. When Mike Moore travelled to Cuba as part of a documentary he was making, he was threatened with legal action, because there are restrictions in place regarding travel to Cuba. The USA is content for negative messages about Cuba, but cannot bear for a documentary to be made about the country that may tell a different story.
I remember how the US TV networks stopped running footage of Osama Bin Laden too, apparently because his hand gestures were giving coded signals to operatives about when and where to attack. Mind you it had absolutely nothing to do with the US government trying to stamp out political speech.
The fact that Al Qaeda operatives could freely watch his speeches online apparently slipped by the US govt.
Cuba clamping down on anti-government activists is nothing new, but lets not pretend the US govt doesn't play the same games when it suits them.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?