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Europe urged to remember Cuban
repression on 1st anniversary of crackdown.
Proclaiming "Europe says NO to repression in Cuba," Reporters Without
Borders held a news conference at the European Parliament in Brussels
today to mark the first anniversary of the start a wave of arrests in
Cuba on 18 March 2003, which ended with a total of 75 dissidents,
including 27 journalists, being sentenced to long prison terms.
Leading personalities and witnesses of the crackdown came to voice their
views on the situation in Cuba. Spanish film-maker Fernando Arrabal was
among those at the event, which was sponsored by Polish former dissident
and former foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek and French writer and
philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.
New campaigns to get European citizens and EU authorities involved
Reporters Without Borders unveiled new initiatives at the press
conference that are designed to alert the European Union's public and
its decision-makers about the human rights violations that are still
being committed by Fidel Castro's regime.
The organisation's secretary-general, Robert Ménard, urged European
parliamentarians to sign a "Brussels Declaration" in which they
undertake to constantly petition the Cuban government for the release of
the 75 dissidents and to call on the "European Commission and Council to
pursue policies consistent with this goal."
The declaration's first signatories included Daniel Cohn-Bendit of
France (president of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance);
Emma Bonino of Italy (radical group of Non-Attached); Pervenche Berés of
France (vice-president of the Group of the Party of European
Socialists); Graham Watson of Scotland (president of the Group of the
European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party - ELDR); José Ribeiro e
Castro of Portugal (Union for Europe of the Nations Group); Gérard
Deprez of Belgium (European People's Party) and Jules Maaten of
Netherlands (ELDR).
Reporters Without Borders also announced the launch of a poster campaign
aimed at encouraging the approximately 800,000 European tourists who
visit Cuba each year to think about what goes on there behind the
promotional clichés. The campaign's visual is a young woman on beach
wearing a T-shirt that says, "Cuba Si, Castro No." The accompanying text
says:
"Are you tempted by Cuba for your holidays, by its dreamy beaches and
its frenetic rhythms? Watch out! Except in picture postcards, the Cuban
sun doesn't shine for everyone. The Castro regime arrested some 80
journalists, dissidents and human rights activists in March 2003 and
gave them long prison sentences. For daring to talk about democracy in
their country, some of them are going to spend up to 28 years in
prison... Wise up to where you're going!"
Reporters Without Borders also unveiled "Cuba, le livre noir" (Cuba, the
Blanck Book), a collection of reports about Cuba by human rights groups
- Amnesty International, Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation, Human Rights Watch, Pax Christi Netherlands and
Reporters Without Borders - which is being published in French-speaking
countries to coincide with the anniversary.
The book reveals the scale of the spring 2003 crackdown and the way a
totalitarian regime functions. It includes passages from Cuban
legislation that is used to crush individual freedoms, as well as
extracts from the main manifestos of the dissident groups that are
trying to steer Cuba towards a democratic transition, and which are
accused by the government of being the agents of US imperialism.
Leading personalities and witnesses condemn the human rights abuses
Poland's former dissident Bronislaw Geremek was asked to open the press
conference in part because it came just six weeks before eight former
Soviet-bloc countries join the European Union on 1 May. In view of their
past, these nations are expected to press for human rights to remain at
the centre of the EU's relations with their former bloc-partner Cuba.
After Geremek's introduction, Bernard-Henri Lévy spoke about the
relationship between Europe's intellectuals and Cuba, while Latin
America specialist Elizabeth Burgos talked briefly about the history of
repression in Cuba since the early years of the Castro regime.
Reporters Without Borders also wanted to give victims a chance to speak
on this first anniversary. So several mothers of currently imprisoned
journalists and dissidents who belong to the Miami-based group Mothers
and Wives Against Repression (Madres y Mujeres Anti Represión - MAR)
spoke next. Humberto Medrano, the former editor of the daily Prensa
Libre, which was closed by the authorities in 1960, also described how
the Castro regime imposed its centrally-controlled, uniform press system
in the revolution's early years.
The personal accounts concluded with "Monologue of a guilty person" by
journalist and poet Raúl Rivero, which was read for him by Spanish
film-director Fernando Arrabal. Winner of the Reporters Without Borders-Fondation
de France Prize in 1997, Rivero is one of the leading exponents of
independent journalism in Cuba. He was arrested on 20 March 2003 and
sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Cuba became the world's biggest prison for journalists on 18 March 2003
Cuba's constitution only allows the governmental press to exist.
Independent news agencies have tried to challenge the state's monopoly
of the news media for the past 10 years or so. As they are unable to get
their reports and articles published inside Cuba, these agencies send
them abroad where they are used by both websites and print media.
A total of 27 independent journalists were arrested in the course of the
March 2003 crackdown, joining the three who were already in prison. They
were convicted of actions against Cuba's "independence and economy"
under law 88 or "actions against the state's independence and
territorial integrity" under article 91 of the criminal code. In
general, they were accused of collaborating with the United States by
writing articles that gave a different view of Cuba from what the
official press offers. Their reports were usually about the (not
officially recognised) opposition, human rights violations or Cuban
daily life.
Shortly after being convicted at the start of April, the journalists and
all the other detained dissidents were transferred to prisons often
hundreds of kilometres from their homes. Forced to undertake long and
expensive journeys in order to visit them, their families complained of
"a second sentence." The prisoners receive the harshest treatment
provided by Cuba's prisons and are allowed only one family visit every
three months (instead of every three weeks).
All have complained of abominable conditions: a lack of hygiene (cells
infested by rats and cockroaches), a lack of medical care, revolting
food, a lack of access to water and interception of their mail. Some,
such as Oscar Espinosa Chepe, are seriously ill.
The latest reports concern Ivan Hernández Carrillo of the independent
Patria agency, who is held at the Holguín provincial penitentiary in
central Cuba. He went on hunger strike from 23 February to 14 March to
press his demand to be moved to another wing after receiving death
threats from cell-mates and being harassed by guards. Two other inmates
at Holguín, journalist Adolfo Fernández Saínz and dissident Alfredo
Domínguez Batista, also went on hunger strike in support of Hernández's
demand on 2 March. All three later reportedly called off the protest
after he got his wish.
A special section of the Reporters Without Borders website (www.rsf.org),
entitled "Cuba, the world's biggest prison for journalists," offers
Internet users information about detained journalists, international
reactions to their long prison sentences, and background briefing about
how the news is controlled in Cuba.
Source: Comité por La Libertad y la Democracia de
Cuba.
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