Rubio Calls for Antunez's Release

Senator Rubio Comments on the Beating of Cuban Freedom Advocate Jorge Luis garcia Perez "Antunez"

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued the following statement today following reports that Cuban regime authorities detained and viciously beat freedom advocate and former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez Antunez, less than a week after he testified via tele-conference during a Senate Foreign Relations’ Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs hearing:

“Antunez is a courageous human rights activist. It is clear that he has been jailed and savagely beaten by criminals working for the Castro regime because he testified before the Senate last week. The regime’s thugs will eventually be held accountable for these crimes. History will not wipe away the blood they have on their hands. Antunez should be released immediately, and all threats and acts of violence against him and his family must stop, as they should with any Cubans who are simply demanding their God-given rights.

Furthermore, we should reexamine the unintended yet negative consequences of this administration’s loosened travel and remittance policies. The naïve people-to-people exchanges that have been abused provides Raul Castro’s regime the hard currency it requires to pay thugs to jail, brutalize and even murder innocent Cuban people.”