California prisoners suspend hunger strike after almost two months

Yesterday Pelican Bay State Prison inmates announced that they have suspended their hunger strike, lasting for nine weeks. They warn however that the struggle is far from over. 

Greetings of Solidarity and Respect!

The PBSP-SHU, Short Corridor Collective Representatives hereby serve notice upon all concerned parties of interest that after nine weeks we have collectively decided to suspend our third hunger strike action on September 5, 2013.

To be clear, our Peaceful Protest of Resistance to our continuous subjection to decades of systemic state sanctioned torture via the system’s solitary confinement units is far from over. Our decision to suspend our third hunger strike in two years does not come lightly. This decision is especially difficult considering that most of our demands have not been met (despite nearly universal agreement that they are reasonable). The core group of prisoners has been, and remains 100% committed to seeing this protracted struggle for real reform through to a complete victory, even if it requires us to make the ultimate sacrifice.  With that said, we clarify this point by stating prisoner deaths are not the objective, we recognize such sacrifice is at times the only means to an end of fascist oppression.

Our goal remains: force the powers that be to end their torture policies and practices in which serious physical and psychological harm is inflicted on tens of thousands of prisoners as well as our loved ones outside.  We also call for ending the related practices of using prisoners to promote the agenda of the police state by seeking to greatly expand the numbers of the working class poor warehoused in prisons, and particularly those of us held in solitary, based on psychological/social manipulation, and divisive tactics keeping prisoners fighting amongst each other. Those in power promote mass warehousing to justify more guards, more tax dollars for “security”, and spend mere pennies for rehabilitation — all of which demonstrates a failed penal system, high recidivism, and ultimately compromising public safety.  The State of California’s $9.1 billion annual CDCR budget is the epitome of a failed and fraudulent state agency that diabolically and systemically deprives thousands of their human rights and dignity. Allowing this agency to act with impunity has to stop! And it will.

With that said, and in response to much sincere urging of loved ones, supporters, our attorneys and current and former state legislators, Tom Ammiano, Loni Hancock, and Tom Hayden, for whom we have the upmost respect, we decided to suspend our hunger strike.  We are especially grateful to Senator Hancock and Assembly Member Ammiano for their courageous decision to challenge Governor Brown and the CDCR for their policies of prolonged solitary confinement and inhumane conditions. We are certain that they will continue their fight for our cause, including holding legislative hearings and the drafting legislation responsive to our demands on prison conditions and sentencing laws. We are also proceeding with our class action civil suit against the CDCR.

The fact is that Governor Brown and CDCR Secretary Beard have responded to our third peaceful action with typical denials and falsehoods, claiming solitary confinement does not exist and justifying the continuation of their indefinite torture regime by vilifying the peaceful protest representatives. They also obtained the support of the medical receiver (Kelso) and Prison Law Office attorney (Spector—who is supposed to represent prisoners interests, and instead has become an agent for the state) to perpetuate their lie to the public and to the federal court — that prisoners participating in the hunger strike have been coerced — in order to obtain the August 19, 2013 force feeding order.

We have deemed it to be in the best interest of our cause to suspend our hunger strike action until further notice.

We urge people to remember that we began our present resistance with our unprecedented collective and peaceful actions (in tandem with the legislative process) back in early 2010, when we created and distributed a “Formal Complaint” for the purpose of educating the public and bringing widespread attention to our torturous conditions.

After much dialogue and consideration, this led us to our first and second hunger strike actions in 2011, during which a combined number of 6,500 and 12,000 prisoners participated. We succeeded in gaining worldwide attention and support resulting in some minor changes by the CDCR concerning SHU programming and privileges. They also claimed to make major changes to policies regarding gang validation and indefinite SHU confinement by creating the STG/SDP Pilot Program. They released a few hundred prisoners from SHU/AD SEG to general population in the prison.  But in truth, this is all part of a sham to claim the pilot program works and was a weak attempt to have our class action dismissed. It didn’t work.

In response we respectfully made clear that CDCR’s STG-SDP was not responsive to our demand for the end to long term isolation and solitary confinement and thus unacceptable.  (See: AGREEMENT TO END HOSTILITIES)

Our supporting points fell on deaf ears, leading to our January 2013 notice of intent to resume our hunger strike on July 8, 2013 if our demands were not met.  We also included Forty Supplemental Demands.

In early July, CDCR produced several memos notifying prisoners of an increase in privileges and property items, which are notably responsive to a few of our demands, while the majority of our demands were unresolved, leading to our third hunger strike, in which 30,000 prisoners participated and resulted in greater worldwide exposure, support and condemnation of the CDCR!

From our perspective, we’ve gained a lot of positive ground towards achieving our goals.  However, there’s still much to be done.  Our resistance will continue to build and grow until we have won our human rights.

Respectfully,

For the Prisoner Class Human Rights Movement
Todd Ashker, C58191, D1-119
Arturo Castellanos, C17275, D1-121
Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry), C35671, D1-117
Antonio Guillen, P81948, D2-106

And the Representatives Body:
Danny Troxell, B76578, D1-120
George Franco, D46556, D4-217
Ronnie Yandell, V27927, D4-215
Paul Redd, B72683, D2-117
James Baridi Williamson, D-34288. D4-107
Alfred Sandoval, D61000, D4-214
Louis Powell, B59864, D1-104
Alex Yrigollen, H32421, D2-204
Gabriel Huerta, C80766, D3-222
Frank Clement, D07919, D3-116
Raymond Chavo Perez, K12922, D1-219
James Mario Perez, B48186, D3-124

Source: Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (see also Electronic Intifada, which compares the inhumane situation in Palestine's prisons with that of California).

Paraguay: special powers to use the army cause social alarm

Paraguay is in imminent danger of return to outright fascism, as the newly elect President, Horacio Cartes, managed to pass a law that allows him to use the Army arbitrarily, even against the civilian population, which is now held perpetually suspect as "alleged terrorists". This law is similar to the one that granted fascist dictator Alfredo Stroessner absolute power, but even Stroessner did not act so fast in his consolidation as totalitarian ruler. 

Source: LINyM[es].

Colombia: generalized uprising and brutal police repression

The local (much less the international) media is not reporting on the farmer strike, much less the brutal repression taking place against this uprising, every day more generalized. However the information is leaking via the Internet, including many striking videos, for example:

They do not just repress but also steal food and other produce to farmers:

Source and more videos: Webguerrillero[es].

Egypt: repression against Tamarrod begins

As former dictator Hosni Mubarak was set free in spite of the many charges still standing against them, the Tamarrod movement began calling for demonstrations against such atrocity, a clear sign of the return to Mubarakism by the hand of the military junta. 

State attorneys Mahmud Badr, Mohamed Abdel Aziz and Hassan Chahin are instigating accusations against the popular movement, who have called for protests against the ridiculous acquittal and liberation of the dictator in spite of all his violations against human rights and democracy. 

Source: Noticias de Prensa Latina[es].

Bahrain: Tamarrod day arrives under barbed wire

Barbed wire and cement blocks dominate the landscape of Bahrain these days. Today, August 14th, has been called as Tamarrod (rebellion) journey and the totalitarian Khalifa regime has reacted making whole villages into prisons. 

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights explains:

On Monday, 13^th of August 2013, security forces started surrounding some villages with barbed wire and placed cement blocks to control the movement and prevent protestors from reaching the main roads. Residents of those areas will be forced to cross police checkpoints whenever they need to leave or enter residential areas, which imposes the threat of getting arrested if they were suspected of participating in the protests.

Also the only hospital in the island-state, the Salmaniya Medical Complex, is being controlled by the oversized security forces in a clear attempt to curtail health care for the foreseeable victims of police repression. In the past physicians and nurses themselves have been persecuted just for healing the victims of police. 

Source: BCHR.

Bradley Manning nominated for Peace Nobel

US Antimilitarists have gathered more than 100,000 signatures asking for the Nobel Prize of Peace to be given to US imprisoned dissident Bradley Manning, who helped to reveal the brutality of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and who, after suffering years of torture in the brutal military prisons of the Washington regime faces the equivalent to a life penalty in a trial with zero guarantees. 

Norman Solomon, member of Roots Action, gave the 103,000 signatures to Nowegian MP and member of the Peace Prize committee Asle Toje. However he declared that: the Peace Nobel needs more Bradley Manning than Bradley Manning the Nobel Price. Nowadays there are many questions about the compromise of the Nobel Committee with human rights and peace in an equanimous and independent manner.

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Basque Country: ideological repression reaches the fiestas of Bilbao and Laudio

The Spanish proconsul in the Western Basque Country, a petty bald guy known as Carlos Urquijo, denounced the recently appointed txupinera (woman in charge of shooting some noisy fireworks known as txupinak) of the Fiestas of Bilbao, Jone Artola (pictured). Why? Because she is the sister of a political prisoner and active for decades in the konpartsa (festive organization) Txori Barrote, related to the prisoner solidarity human rights organization Etxerat (back home), of which she has been speaker often. 

That would half-normal, considering the fascist imperialist nature of the Kingdom of Spain. But what is more worrisome is that a tribunal accepted yesterday the demand, temporarily suspending Artola at just one week from the beginning of the Fiestas. 

A few days ago another tribunal also suspended the appointment of Pablo Gorostiaga, 71, as pregonero (in charge of reading the festive proclamation or inaugural discourse) of the fiestas of Laudio. Gorostiaga was for many years the elected mayor of this town but was sentenced to nine years of prison in a political persecution trial. 

Pablo Gorostiaga in a political meeting

The legal pretext for both instances of political repression is the so-called Law of Acknowledgement and Reparation to the Victims of Terrorism, which is designed, it seems, to impede free speech and increase political repression against Basque patriots. 

It is hard to see how these kind of fascist measures can help at all to bring peace and conciliation. Rather the opposite: it seems that Madrid is determined to re-ignite the endless war, probably because they need some sort of distraction for all the socio-economic problems they are unable to solve, never mind deep institutional corruption. 

Source: Naiz Info[es] (link 1, link 2, link 3, link4).

Bahrain: blogger and journalist aide arrested

From the Bahrain Center for Human Rights:

Bahrain: Arrest of blogger and media fixer Mohamed Hassan

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses grave concern in regards to the recent arrest of blogger and media fixer Mohamed Hassan (27) during a dawn raid on his home.  His whereabouts and charges are still unknown and he has not made any communication with family and lawyer until the time of writing this report.

At around 3am on 31 July 2013, masked men in civilian clothes belonging to the Ministry of Interior raided the house of blogger Mohammed Hassan and arrested him after presenting an arrest warrant but without giving any justification for the arrest or the charges pressed against him. They also confiscated his electronic devices.

This is not the first time blogger Mohammed Hassan is targeted by the authorities in Bahrain.

Mohammed Hassan, also known as @Safybh, was known for expressing his views on twitter and on his blog http://safybh.wordpress.com/ in support of the struggle for freedom and democracy in Bahrain. He stopped tweeting and blogging since April 2013.

Hassan was arrested before on 21 April 2012 while he was escorting reporters to protesting villages to show them the violations of the authorities against peaceful protesters. He was hit with a gun barrel in his leg and reportedly severely beaten before getting arrested. He was denied access to a lawyer, and released the next day. He was then arrested again on 22 April 2012 at a checkpoint in Sanabis with journalist Colin Freeman from The Sunday Telegraph. They were taken to the Exhibition Center police station. Hassan was interrogated about his connection to the journalist and they were later released without any charges.  

In June 2012 Mohammed Hassan was summoned for interrogation, and was accused with three charges: writing for websites and newspapers without a license, illegal gathering and tweeting. He wrote later on his twitter: "They asked me about all tweets, even the ones where I say goodnight, I was also questioned about the articles I write and the journalists I know, especially when I was arrested and beaten last April. I was accused of calling for “unlicensed" marches when I invited people to [participate in] Nabeel Rajab’s “Thank you” march, [the] problem is: it was actually licensed. After asking a lawyer I realized that I was correct about not needing a license for blogging or writing an op-ed for a website."

... continue reading at BCHR.

Germany: yet another immigrant slave-labor scandal

Romanian and Bulgarian citizens have seen themselves forced as quasi-slave labor for years in the meat industry of Germany. 

The slave master is Wiesenhof, a major meat corporation based in Bremen, who established a de facto concentration camp in the most incredible Nazi style in a rural area near this city. This are the living quarters of the workers: barracks surrounded by barbed wire and tightly watched by security guards, who impede anyone from entering or leaving. 

We woke up at two in the morning and worked until five in the afternoon, says a Romanian worker. Maybe they needed us again at seven and woke us up...

They had us controlled every second, even entered the quarters to see if we were sleeping, explains another worker. She was one of the denouncers and was threatened: don't you fear to go to an attorney and explain what happens, warned her boss, I say because maybe you go out there and a car runs over you, or maybe someone beats you to death and buries your body in the middle of nowhere, several meters away from your head.

Salaries? 600-700 euros.

This is not the first such scandal: Spanish nurses were deceived[es] into a similar meat industry arrangement but they refused the job, a similar situation affecting this time to Polish workers was denounced[de] weeks ago, and yet another similar case affecting Spanish workers of Amazon Inc. was denounced months ago[es].

It seems a widespread and growing problem that makes me wonder if this is the European Union that Germany wants: a IV Reich?

Sources: Webguerrillero[es], Das Erste[de].

NSA police regime scandal: Greenwald confirms Snowden's reports

Glenn Greenwald

NSA analyst Glenn Greenwald admits that the powerful spy agency can do almost anything in your computer:

Greenwald said the existence of these analyst search programs are in line with the claims of Edward Snowden, who first leaked details of the NSA's surveillance programs last month.

 

"It's an incredibly powerful and invasive tool, exactly of the type that Mr. Snowden described," Greenwald said.

NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander and House Intelligence leaders have previously downplayed Snowden's access to NSA data. Greenwald said the revelation of this search capability deserves a response from NSA officials.

"NSA officials are going to be testifying before the Senate on Wednesday, and I defy them to deny that these programs work exactly as I just said," Greenwald said.

Greenwald also called on lawmakers to push for more information about the NSA's surveillance programs.

"The real issue here is that what the NSA does is done in complete secrecy. Nobody really monitors who they are eavesdropping on," Greenwald said. "So the question of abuse is one that the Congress ought to be investigating much more aggressively."

Excerpted from a Yahoo! News article. 

NSA police regime: your user passwords are also being released to the cops

Internet corporations are releasing all kind of private information to the NSA or FBI cops including passwords and other secret elements such as encryption codes and encryption seeds (SALT), etc.

That way they can access your accounts and even supplant you. 

Of all companies questioned by CNET, only Google declared to have never given away such data, adding that they have an attorney team to deal with such issues. 

Microsoft neither confirmed nor denied but said that, would they do it they would not reveal passwords, SALT codes nor encryption algorithms.

All the rest (Apple, Facebook, AOL, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable y Comcast) declined to comment, what amounts to a "yes". The FBI also declined to comment. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es], citing Russia Today.

Fascist USA: journalists not allowed to keep their sources secret

In yet another example showing that the United States is not a democracy but an authoritarian state, a court has ruled (against many precedents and a long-established tradition) that journalists can't keep their sources secret. They applied a century-old emergency law (WWI) which was before only used in three cases.

From Russia Today:

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that New York Times journalist James Risen must testify in the trial of a former Central Intelligence Agency officer accused of leaking classified national defense information to the media.

A lower court ruled previously that Risen could protect the source responsible for sharing intelligence about a CIA operation discussed in his writing, but the US Court of Appeals from the Fourth Circuit reversed that decision Friday morning with a 2-1 vote. 

“The reporter must appear and give testimony just as every other citizen must. We are not at liberty to conclude otherwise,” Chief Judge William Traxler Jr. wrote for the majority opinion.

The trial is about Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent accused of leaking a Clinton-era plan to deceive Iran into using faulty nuclear weapon blueprints. There are other six people accused.

.

Andalusia: Spanish Constitutional Court uses the Constitution as toilet paper

Occupied homes in Andalusia

A year ago I commented with satisfaction that the Andalusian Parliament had approved a law that would allow expropriation of empty homes in order to guarantee the fundamental right to a dignified home, established in the Spanish Constitution. 

By this basic law of the Kingdom of Spain, the right to a home, as well as to a job, are fundamental rights, well above the accessory right to private property. Until now the main formal argument against tribunals upholding such fundamental rights was that they were not regulated by the state and therefore there was a legal vacuum. 

So what happens when the Andalusian institutions in full use of their legislating capabilities do regulate these rights as clearly intended by the letter and spirit of the Spanish Constitution of 1978? That the ultra-conservative Constitutional Court declares that hyper-constitutional law "possibly unconstitutional". 

It is not yet a firm sentence but just a procedural suspension for five months but the fact that the high court even dares to consider debatable the Madrid and Brussels claim of the right to property being above the right to a home, in clear contradiction with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, is a clear signal that, exactly as it has been for the last many decades, the Spanish Constitution is only worth as toilet paper. 

The Constitutional Court is clearly underlining this well known fact: there's no constitution, just banks.

Source: Diagonal[es].

Turkey: 50 political prisoners beging hunger strike

50 people arrested in the context of the Taksim uprising have begun a hunger strike in protest for what they denounce as a witch hunt. 

Erdogan and the Turkish police-military apparatus are persecuting people for just being members of the Taksim Solidarity platform, arresting them and searching their homes. 

Taksim Solidarity demands the immediate release of all those arrested for merely exerting their right to demonstration. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

USA: 30,000 prisoners join hunger strike in California!!!

This may be the more massive hunger strike ever. Some 30,000 inmates from  22 of the 33 California prisons have joined a hunger strike for their most basic rights.

The strike was initiated by the Pelican Bay prisoners, who suffer the worst conditions maybe in the whole North American federation. Of some 80,000 prisoners under isolation regime in the USA, at least 1000 are in that jail. In all California maybe 4500 inmates are being kept in the hole, often for many years, even decades! Some people in SHU (security housing units) regime have not seen sunlight in 20 years.

Other 6000 suffer some other variants of the isolation regime.

Most of the isolated inmates are being held hostage of arbitrary and inhumane prison rules:

By far the largest number of SHU inmates are accused of belonging to gangs, and can only be released from solitary by accusing other inmates of gang affiliation – a process that is euphemistically called “debriefing” – thus turning everyone into a potential snitch against everyone else.

Belonging to a gang can be "determined" by the simple fact of greeting someone else, believed to be a gang member. In other words: you cannot have normal relationships with the other prisoners, make friends or whatever on penalty of being thrown into the hole for years.

Only snitches and such scum are allowed some sort of normal life and possibility of parole.

Their core demands are:

1. Eliminate Group Punishments
2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy and Modify ‘Active/Inactive’ Gang Status Criteria
3. Comply with Recommendations of U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons (from 2006)
4. Provide Adequate Food
5. Provide Constructive Programs and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Inmates.

Sources: Black Agenda Report, Webguerrillero[es].

See also: yesterday's entry USA: prisoners in California begin hunger strike against "super-max isolation" regime and their PDF single issue newspaper with demands and all kind of explanations: Strike the Prisons.

UN: Israel tortures children

... and abuses them in many other ways, including systematically using children as human shields, arresting them arbitrarily, etc.

Video by The Real News:

Germany also spies its citizens

Again stating the obvious: nearly every government is breaking the law systematically, what evidences that we do not live in democracies nor states of law. Lawlessness is the "law" in the seats of power, law is only (if at all) for and against the citizens. 

The German secret service BND, heir of the Nazi secret service for Eastern Europe and one of the most efficient secret services in the World, is systematically spying its own citizens in exactly the same manner as the NSA: Internet providers are obliged to give the BND all the information they request. 

This is exactly what the North American NSA, the British GCHQ and the French DGSE do. And as far as my knowledge goes, as former worker of Telefónica, police never needed in practice any judicial approval to listen to any conversation in Spain either, so nowadays it is almost certain that they do inspect any telephone, email and other Internet communications systematically. And it must be common practice in most other states as well. 

What's the law for? Well, for nothing at all. Just a pretext to apply selectively when convenient against the people.

Ref. Webguerrillero[es], citing HispanTV[es].

France: DGSE also spies its citizens illegally

The spy agency General Direction for the Security of the State (DGSE) has been revealed to be doing exactly the same as the NSA. From The Raw Story:

... the DGSE intercepted signals from computers and telephones in France, and between France and other countries, although not the content of phone calls, to create a map of “who is talking to whom”. It said the activity was illegal.

“All of our communications are spied on,” wrote Le Monde, which based its report on unnamed intelligence sources as well as remarks made publicly by intelligence officials.

“Emails, text messages, telephone records, access to Facebook and Twitter are then stored for years,” it said.

Of course nobody should be surprised by that. But we all must know and also feel very outraged. While the news is not really news, it is indeed a clear violation of all the alleged principles of the so-called democracy, in which citizens have the right to privacy and authorities need special reasons and authorizations to breach such fundamental right.

Instead all that is routinely monitored and stored, and much as Winston Smith in the dystopian (but horribly realistic) masterpiece 1984, we must all know that each of our communications is being listened to, that we all are being treated as criminal suspects. 

In other words: that we live under a not-so-subtle totalitarian tyranny.

Greece: bourgeois camp clearly heading to outright fascism

Two news snippets from I can't relax in Greece evidence how the conservative party (ND) in government (with necessary support from the so-called "moderate left") is clearly paving the way for the worst kind of fascism in the European country. 

Compulsory and arbitrary arrests for HIV tests

On one side the new Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis, has re-issued a decree allowing police to arbitrarily arrest people to have them made forced HIV tests. The measure was in place previously for several months until it was suspended because of popular outcry. 

However in the time it was in place many people, mostly women, were arbitrarily arrested and those who tested positive saw their names and personal data published by the government, who accused them without evidence of being "prostitutes" and "a time bomb". 

The 17 women were not just publicly defamed but kept in jail for months and subjected to a mock trial in which they were accused of "intended bodily injury". They were finally acquitted and released in March.

This is the kind of human rights abuses one would expect of a Nazi regime, right? Exactly like the massive concentration camps for immigrants, allowing police to be penetrated to the marrow by the Nazi Party (Golden Dawn) or tolerating Nazi thugs to scare the hell out of the judge who was going to try one of them. 

Forming government with the Nazis

But is looks like it will get worse: after next elections, if maths allow, they will join forces directly with the Nazis. 

That is at least what Vryonas Polydoras declared this week when asked if they would join forces with Golden Dawn to form government: "of course". 

Polydoras, who used to be minister and speaker in Parliament, added:

We demonstrate sensitivity towards Golden Dawn, which got 600,000 votes [in the last election], will get one million [votes in the next] and we have memories of the Weimar constitution. We remember the Weimar constitution.

One wonders what he means with the references to Weimar, probably that the bourgeois collaboration of parties like his own or like PASOK in the rise of Hitler was "right".  Probably the guy thinks that anything is valid against socialism and he is surely ready to burn the Greek Parliament and blame the commies, exactly as the Nazis did with the Reichstag eighty years ago.


Update: example of highly unequal treatment to Anarchist and Fascists for the same crime

“DEMOCRACY FACTS: 

Sakkas K. He was arrested and is held in pre-trial detention for 30 months without trial. Accusation: Anarchist and possessing illegally a weapon (pistol)

Chaidas A. & Drakos P. Golden Dawn members who were arrested and were released immediately. Accusation: Possessing illegally a weapon (pistol, knifes, metal stick)

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FIGHTER AND PARA-STATE”

Notice that pre-trial detention beyond 18 months is illegal and therefore Kostas Sakkas is in hunger strike for his rights.

Source: From the Greek Streets. 

Spanish actor Willy Toledo moves to Cuba and speaks out again

Guillermo "Willy" Toledo has won several prizes but he is best known maybe for his compromise with popular struggles in Spain and abroad alike, as well as his blunt honesty. Recently he announced he is moving to Cuba because he feels the need to be in direct contact with the lively dynamics of Latin America. Digital Newspaper Webguerrillero reproduces today an interview[es] with him, of which I translate some small fragments:

They have always told me: "if you like Cuba so much, why don't you move there". Well, I am already in Cuba... I imagine now the chief editors and the lackeys of their masters in the newspapers' redactions squeezing their brains to see how they could discredit me and all they could muster was that one: to publish a photo of a mansion with butlers, chaffeur and swimming pool... and all the fantasized privileges that the Cuban state gives those who defend it... well, it is radical and absolutely false. 

...

I am aware that I have been vetoed [in Spain, because of his compromise with Cuba] for various jobs in TV and cinema. What dimension does this have? I can't say because, excepting all these cases that I know for sure, I will never get to know if they said: "don't give this job to Willy Toledo". I am persuaded that this happens, exactly the same that there are dozens or even hundreds of political prisoners in my country just for expressing their opinions, just for being activists of the Left, of the Revolutionary Left especially, be it in the Basque Country, in Madrid, in Andalusia, in Catalonia wherever... Recently some Catalan Anarchists were arrested just for expressing their opinions in Facebook; that is the democratic state we live in. I am, I have always been very conscious of the consequences that being active in the Left, or the "extreme left" as they say, may carry.

... I keep an eye in Spain and when they need me I will be back there. When everything explodes, because it will explode, there will be a social uprising and there will be a true frontal opposition in the streets against the criminal government ruling in the Spanish state, I will be the first one to join. 

... would not I be a well-known actor I would probably be in jail right now, in prison in Spain; that is the sensation I have, they have tried it a couple of times but I think they calculated that having me in prison is not in their interest... by the moment, because there are many young men and women in jail who never had the media repercussion that there was the two times I was arrested.

Note: he was arrested once at a protest in the Spanish Congress in solidarity against the Moroccan massacre of the Peace and Dignity Camp of Gdeim Izik, West Sahara. Then he was also arrested when participating in a General Strike picket, suffering, as many others, false accusations. 

In the case of the General Strike many comrades who were arrested that very same night were kept prisoners for months in the jails of the Spanish state where - according to the European Union, the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and local anti-torture groups - still today, in the year 2013, prisoners are brutally tortured in police stations and prisons, something that never happened in Cuba.