H.E. Fidel Castro Ruz
President
Office of the President
Consejo de Estado
Plaza de la Revolución
Ciudad de la Habana
Republic of Cuba
Fax: (011.537) 33.51.06
Your Excellency:
We write to protest your country@quot;s part in the continuing worldwide abuse of press freedom.
On this day, World Press Freedom Day, there are to the best of our knowledge 193 journalists imprisoned in the jails of 29 countries, most of them solely for having done their jobs. Cuba is one of the 29, and we are informed that you have 33 journalists in custody — a number that makes you the world@quot;s second largest jailer of journalists, behind only China.
The most notorious of your abuses was the crackdown on dissidents begun in March of last year, when nearly 80 political dissidents were arrested and, in short order, convicted of subversion and collaborating with American diplomats. They included 29 journalists: Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, Ricardo González Alfonso, Pablo Pacheco Avila, Raúl Rivero Casteñeda, Oscar Espinoza Chepe, Fabio Prieto Llorente, Hector Maseda Gutierrez, Mario Enrique Mayo, Pedro Arguëlles Morán, Léster Luis González Pentón, Omar Rodriguez Saludes, Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, Miguel Galván Gutierrez, Alfredo Felipe Fuentes, Iván Hernández Carrillo, Normando Hernández González, José Luis Garcia Paneque, Jorge Olivera Castillo, Jose Gabriel Ramón Castillo, Omar Ruiz Hernandez, Manuel Vasquez Portal, Jose Ubaldo Izquierdo, Edel José Garcia Diaz, Carmelo Diaz Fernández, Julio César Galvez Rodriguez, Mijail Barzaga Lugo, Adolfo Fernández Saínz, Alfredo Pulido Lopez, and Alejandro González Raga. In addition, you are still holding four journalists arrested on various occasions in 2002: Lester Téllez Castro, Carlos Brizuela Yera, Jesús Alvarez Castillo and Carlos Alberto Domingues.
According to The New York Times , the victims of your crack-down are being held “”in hellish conditions, in many cases as far from their families as Cuba allows. They are in rat- and insect-infested cells, get starvation rations and are forced to share space with violent criminals or to suffer in solitary confinement. Their average sentence is 19 years. Some of the prisoners@quot; wives have been warned that they will lose their children if they continue to protest their husbands@quot; detentions.”” This is simply indefensible.
Your Excellency, these prisoners should be released both on principle and as a matter of expediency. The principle is simple, as stated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “”Everyone,? according to the Declaration, ?has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”” U.N. members recognize that this right is sometimes inconvenient and troublesome. Yet, it is crucial to uphold and, for practical reasons, as well as principle: As Cuba@quot;s recent history amply demonstrates, a nation that stifles freedom of thought and expression forfeits the good opinion of the world and isolates itself. This may prompt political or economic sanctions, with loss of diplomatic influence and domestic prosperity; at the least, it relegates a country to the company of North Korea, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, or Zimbabwe. And in long or short order, a repressive regime will be overturned.
The Overseas Press Club of America, an independent organization that has defended press freedom around the world for 65 years, urges you to re-think your policy, to welcome free expression of ideas and opinions, and to release all the journalists now in custody.
The courtesy of a reply would be appreciated.
Respectfully yours,
Larry Martz
Norman A. Schorr
Co-chairmen, Freedom of the Press Committee