Leonardo Bruzón Avila

Leonardo Miguel Bruzón Avila, 45 years old is married and the father of three teenage children (two boys and one girl). He has a Bachelors Degree in Economics and lives in No.564 Campanario Street, Centro Habana, Cuba..

Mr. Bruzón Avila is the president of the "February 24th Movement". He was arrested December 3 (2000) as a result of a campaign of prayer in which he and fellow dissidents belonging to the Movement were asking for the release of political prisoners in Cuba. Bruzón was arrested at his home, which doubles as the headquarters of the organization, and taken to the Technical Investigations Department (DTI) of the Cuban Police, known locally simply by its address, at the corner of 100 and Aldabó Streets.

Mr. Bruzón was recently freed after two months of incarceration. In a telephone conversation with CubaNet, he reported:

"From the beginning of my confinement, the treatment was inhuman. I have heard that these methods had not been used in Cuba since 1990, but in my case they were used. I also learned that they were used on other people, similarly for political reasons."

"From the time of my arrest, the political police kept telling me that I had been asking for liberty for political prisoners, but that now, who was going to ask for liberty for me?" He went on a hunger strike lasting 42 days, "one," he says, "for every year of the Communist dictatorship."

"They first put me in a "tapiada" cell [i.e., a cell with no bars or windows, closed by a metal door], and then transferred me to a punishment cell where I was kept handcuffed to the bars for four days, with my hands up in such a way that I couldn't rest. The cell was permanently flooded and the water came to just under the knees"

"On December 10th [the day commemorating the signing of the UN Declaration of Human Rights], I was in Cell No. 240 in the second floor. There, I, and many of the other prisoners, started to shout 'Human Rights' and 'Freedom for Cuba.' I was promptly taken out of Cell 240 and transferred to a place that one of the guards who was taking me called 'the cold room.' There, in a small room, they took my clothes off and lowered the temperature. I stayed there two days. I became very ill. On the second day they took me out and several officers of the Department of State Security took me to the 'Carlos J. Finlay military hospital. I was in the hospital for six days. They tied me to a bed and force-fed me through a tube. I was unconscious when I arrived at the hospital. When I came to, I demanded loudly that they take all those things off (referring to the tubes and tie-downs). Some State Security officers came up and told me they were not going to allow anything to happen to me, that I couldn't die, and that they had ordered that the treatment be maintained."

Mr. Bruzón has not been tried and, at this point, doesn't know whether he will be brought to trial.

[Excerpted from interview conducted February 14, 2001 by José Antonio Fornaris, of Cuba-Verdad and telephoned to CubaNet http://www.cubanet.org]

The State Security Police informed Leonardo Bruzón Avila that he could be set free if he went in front of television cameras and retracted all his statements against the government. Mrs. Alcira Avila, his mother, reported that he was also told to talk about the “good treatment” that he was receiving, including the medical attention.

Mr. Bruzón Avila said that starting today he would, therefore, not accept any further medicine and that he absolutely refuses to talk in front of the television cameras, unless is to denounce the psychological tortures that he has suffered.

Mr. Bruzón is president of the human rights movement “24th of February” and has been incarcerated for 18 months without trial and without even a formal accusation.

[Reported in http://www.cubanet.org, August 11, 2003]

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