The Pain of an Unjustly Imprisoned Father

Cuban political prisoner and independent journalist, Pablo Pacheco, is currently serving the sixth year of a 20-year sentence.

Pacheco is one of 75 pro-democracy leaders sentenced during the 2003 "Black Spring" crackdown on dissent by the Castro regime. Yesterday was his son's birthday, and he managed to dictate the following message by telephone from the prison of Canaleta:

"The question that constantly hovers in [my son's] mind, and therefore always asks, is:

Why did Fidel Castro imprison my father?

He is still too young to understand. I pray to God that he has a happy day today. I hope that we can spend his next birthday together, that the three of us can go for a walk -- my son, his mother and myself -- anywhere. The important thing is that the three of us be able to enjoy it together, as it should have been for these past six years that I have been absent.

All that is left for my son and I is to forgive those responsible for these hard years in prison. Hopefully, they will never experience the same suffering that they have inflicted on Jimmy [my son] and me."

Courtesy of A Voice Behind Bars.