H.E. Raúl Castro
President
Office of the President
Consejo de Estado
Plaza de la Revolución
Ciudad de la Habana
Republic of Cuba
Fax: (011.537) 81.22.71
Your Excellency:
Today is the sixth anniversary of the arbitrary and inhuman imprisonment of a group of seventy five journalists and human rights activists by Cuban authorities. This day arrives with no sign your government even hears the world-wide condemnation of Cuba’s repression of basic human rights. On the contrary, your government continues to harass and jail journalists, for a few days and sometimes much longer, on such ludicrous grounds as being a “pre-criminal danger to society.”
Twenty of the twenty seven journalists arrested in March, 2003, that “Black Spring,” remain in jail under conditions that can only be described as torture. They are crammed into unhealthy cells, served disgusting food, given dirty water, allowed very limited (if any) visiting rights, and denied medical attention until their health has so deteriorated that it can no longer be ignored.
There were hopes after you became president that these journalists might be freed. In February 2008, your foreign minister signed two international covenants which guarantee the right to freedom of expression. Then in June, the European Union agreed to suspend the sanctions adopted against Cuba in 2003 because of arrests of journalists and others, assuming perhaps naively that Cuba was about to release its political prisoners. But nothing changed. The two covenants have not been ratified by your government.
Perhaps now, with the visit of Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, you will finally put an end to this appalling violation of human rights. The Overseas Press Club of America, which defends the rights of journalists around the world, urgently requests that you take this step.
Your Excellency, put Cuba on a path to re-join the free world.
Respectfully yours,
Jeremy Main
Kevin McDermott
Freedom of the Press Committee
cc:
Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Republic of Cuba
to the United Nations
315 Lexington Avenue
New York , NY 10016 Fax: (212) 689.9073
Mr. Dagoberto Rodriguez Barrera
Cuban Interests Section
c/o Embassy of Switzerland
2630 Sixteenth Street, NW
Washington , DC 20009
Fax: (202) 986.7283
Mr. James C. Cason
U.S. Interests Section
c/o Embassy of Switzerland
Calzada between L and M Streets
Vedado Seccion
Havana
Cuba
Fax: (011.537) 33.37.00
Hon. Navi Pillay
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Fax: (011.41.22) 917.9022