Justice for Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Brothers to the Rescue members martyred by Communist Cuba for defending human rights

Justice for Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Brothers to the Rescue members martyred by Communist Cuba for defending human rights

 

 

 

Fifteen years ago on February 23, 2010 Cuban human rights defender and prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo was killed while on hunger strike, after being denied water on and off by prison authorities for 18 days causing his kidneys to shut down.

Orlando Zapata had worked on human rights campaigns with Medal of Freedom laureate Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet and gathered signatures with Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas for the Varela Project petition. Oswaldo Payá, together with youth leader Harold Cepero, were killed extrajudicially on July 22, 2012 by agents of Cuba’s Communist government, revealed the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in their June 2023 report on the merits.

Orlando, through his hunger strike, sought to draw attention to the harsh treatment of Cuban prisoners and the imprisonment of nonviolent dissidents. Tamayo’s death marked the end of his immediate campaign, but his nonviolent action sparked significant support for his cause both inside and outside of Cuba after his passing.

 

International attention at the time had focused on the plight of a group of 75 Cuban prisoners of conscience, and by March 2011 the last of them, José Daniel Ferrer and Félix Navarro, had been freed.  Their freedom, in part, is credited to Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s hunger strike, and the international it brought to the plight of political prisoners in Cuba.

 

Currently, there are over 1,000 political prisoners in Cuba, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has not been able to see any of them. The last time the ICRC was able to visit Cuban prisons, and meet political prisoners was in 1989.

Yoleisy Oviedo Rodríguez

Prison conditions have not improved over the past 15 years in Cuba. Political prisoner Yoleisy Oviedo Rodríguez (age 44) died on February 11, 2025 at the El Guatao Forced Labor Camp in Havana. She was a mother of two children. Yoielsy had been sentenced to five years in prison on November 20, 2023, but had already been jailed since nonviolently on October 10, 2022 protesting prolonged power outages in the municipality of Güines in Mayabeque province.

Twenty nine years ago, on February 24, 1996 Armando Alejandre Jr. (45 years old), Carlos Alberto Costa (29), Mario Manuel de la Peña (24), and Pablo Morales (29) were in two planes engaged in a search and rescue flight for rafters when they were blown out of the sky by missiles launched from a Cuban MiG following Raul Castro’s orders. International investigations concluded that the civilian planes were shot down in international airspace in violation of international norms.This was a premeditated act of state terrorism by the Cuban regime.

On Sunday, February 23 at 3:00pm, the time Orlando Zapata Tamayo died, there will be a vigil at the Casa del Preso  located at 1140 SW 13th Ave, Miami, FL 33135 in remembrance of the Cuban hunger striker.

On Monday, February 24, at 3:15pm friends and families of Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Alberto Costa, Mario Manuel de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, and members of the FIU community will gather and hold a vigil to remember them and silently demand justice 29 years after the shoot down. The vigil will take place at Florida International University ( University Park campus) located at 11200 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33199 at the main fountain next to the Main Library and Student Union. The silent vigil take place start at 3:21pm and end at 3:27pm, the times the two Brothers to the Rescue planes were destroyed by missiles launched from Castro’s MiGs killing Armando, Carlos, Mario, and Pablo. This vigil has been taking place at FIU annually since 1996.

 

 

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