Solidarity from Latin America

A few days ago some 200 intellectuals, activists and artists from Latin America and elsewhere issued a letter Monday urging the United Nations to side with Cuba in an expected battle over the communist country's rights record. We covered that item here. Of course, the signatories of this letter are nothing but anti-American castro cultists, who choose to ignore Cuba's own abyssmal human rights record and ongoing repression to further their own socialist agenda.

Yesterday, more than 100 Latin American writers, editors and reporters demanded the release of jailed Cuban journalists in an open letter to fidel castro:

March 16, 2005

Fidel Castro Ruz
President of the Councils of State and Ministers
Republic of Cuba
c/o Cuban Interests Section in the United States of America
2630 16th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20009

Via facsimile: (202) 797-8521

Your Excellency:

The Committee to Protect Journalists, together with the following 108 Latin American journalists and writers, calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all imprisoned Cuban journalists. We further demand that the sentences of six journalists released on medical parole be annulled.

With 23 imprisoned journalists, Cuba remains one of the world's leading jailers of journalists, second only to China. The journalists have been jailed since March 2003, when the Cuban government arrested them as the world's attention was focused on the war in Iraq. Two weeks after their detentions, the journalists were tried summarily—their trials lasted one day—behind closed doors, and they were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 14 to 27 years.

Although the Cuban government has labeled them "mercenaries," an analysis of trial documents shows that the journalists' work was within the parameters of the legitimate exercise of free expression established under international human rights standards.

The imprisoned journalists have reported unsanitary prison conditions and inadequate medical care. They have also complained of receiving rotten food. Unlike the general prison population, most journalists are only allowed family visits every three months and marital visits every four months. Their relatives have been harassed for talking to the foreign press, protesting the journalists' incarceration, and gathering signatures calling for their release.

Those journalists who were ill before being jailed have seen their health worsen in prison and have been transferred to hospitals or prison infirmaries, while others have developed new illnesses. Some journalists went on hunger strikes during 2004 to protest their conditions. Because prison authorities refused to allow outside contact with the strikers or to disclose information about them, their families were unable to monitor their health.

Between June and December 2004, Cuban authorities released six journalists on medical parole. One released journalist, Carmelo Díaz Fernández, was warned that he would be sent back to prison if he recovered from his illnesses—or if he did not maintain "good behavior."

In late 2004, the remaining jailed journalists were transferred to prison hospitals in Havana, ostensibly for medical checkups. The transfers came as Cuba resumed formal diplomatic contacts with Spain in a possible precursor to normalizing relations with the European Union. The circumstances fueled speculation that additional releases were imminent, but all 23 were returned to their prisons.

Most jailed journalists are far from their homes, adding to the heavy burden on their families. The imprisonment of these journalists in reprisal for their independent reporting violates the most basic norms of international law, including Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees everyone "the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

As writers and journalists in Latin America, we earn our livelihoods by gathering and disseminating information and, in some cases, expressing our opinions. We believe that our activities benefit the societies in which we live and that our right to freedom of expression is protected by international law. For the Cuban government to arbitrarily abrogate this right is an affront to human dignity. We urge the Cuban government to respect international law by allowing journalists to work freely, without fear of reprisal.

Ann Cooper
Executive Director

(Emph. mine)

The list of writers who signed this letter can be found here. Notice how there is no writer representing Cuba. A Cuban publicly signing such a letter critical of the castro regime would basically be signing his own prison sentence.

The castro regime and its cultists will ignore this call for the release of political prisoners. They always do and probabl;y always will. They lack the dignity to address it and the morality to validate it.

Via The Committee to Protect Journalists. More information of castro's systematic stifling of voices can be found here.

Posted by Val Prieto at March 17, 2005 08:05 AM

Comments

Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at March 17, 2005 08:33 AM

Posted by: Ed Perez-Pantoja at March 17, 2005 09:36 AM

Posted by: Ed Perez-Pantoja at March 17, 2005 09:38 AM

Posted by: j.scott barnard at March 17, 2005 09:56 AM

Posted by: Bernie Moro at March 17, 2005 01:56 PM

Posted by: Felix Ricardo at March 17, 2005 02:58 PM

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Posted by: Chuck at March 18, 2005 03:36 PM