Orlando Zapata
Orlando Zapata Tamayo ( born May 15, 1967 in Santiago de Cuba, † February 23, 2010 in Havana ) was a Cuban dissident and professional masons and plumbers.
Life
Zapata was a member of the opposition group Republican alternative and founder of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes - freedom movement in Las Tunas. He also participated in the collection of signatures for the Proyecto Varela initiated by Oswaldo Paya, a petition for legislative reform to provide practical guarantee of fundamental rights.
After imprisonment in connection with the Black Spring crackdown on opposition groups called in March 2003, in which about 75 more dissidents were sentenced in summary proceedings to long prison terms, Zapata was classified by Amnesty International as a political prisoner. He was initially sentenced to three years' imprisonment for " lack of respect for the person of Fidel Castro ," "disturbing public order" and " resistance." In November 2005, the sentence of a court for " disorderly conduct " and "resistance" was raised in prison to 15 years. In May 2006 there was a new trial with the same charges. Zapata received an additional seven years in prison, bringing the total sentence to 25 years in prison was.
To protest the prison conditions, Zapata began a hunger strike and refused to food intake. Even in the week before his death, announced the Zapata family that he was seriously ill. Zapata was moved from a smaller hospital in the Central Cuban province of Camagüey to Havana, after February 22, his condition had deteriorated. He died the day after 85- day hunger strike in Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital. The mother Zapata, Reina Tamayo, the Cuban authorities accused then of murdering her son the purpose of ending the struggle for human rights and said that he was tortured during his prison time. According to information from the International Society for Human Rights he had to endure beatings and torture in prison.
With the death of Zapata died after the poet and student leader Pedro Luis Boitel († 1972), another Cuban activist through hunger strike in protest against the regime. According to the banned but tolerated " Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation " ( Comision de Derechos Humanos y Cubana Reconciliacion Nacional, CCDHRN ) were imprisoned at the time of death of Zapata still about 200 political prisoners in Cuba. This was about a third less than at the time of takeover Raúl Castro from his brother Fidel. According to information of the dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe, the repression has intensified, the repressive apparatus is unchanged by Human Rights Watch.
Orlando Zapata was buried in his hometown of Banes in eastern Cuba. A funeral march was banned by the police. A large contingent of police and public security should prevent the participation of opposition activists. 126 people were arrested, including the regime critic and blogger Yoani Sanchez.
Zapata's mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, who belongs to the founded by family members of political prisoners group Damas de Blanco, continued its public protests against the Cuban government after her son's funeral on, was frequently interviewed by international media and thus became the most prominent government opponent in the East Cuba. In June 2011, they traveled together with other twelve members and Zapata ash from Cuba to the United States to settle permanently there and continue their opposition activities from there.
In July 2012, the local parliament of the Spanish capital, Madrid, the former Santa Marca Park in the northern district of Chamartín decided to rename in honor of the deceased in Orlando Zapata Park.