November 25, 2003: The Committee to Protect Journalists is honoring Cuban journalist Manuel Vázquez Portal and three other journalists with its 2003 International Press Freedom Awards. Mr. Vázquez, serving an 18-year prison term in Cuba, won't be traveling to New York City's Waldorf-Astoria to pick up his prize. But his wife, Yolanda Huerga, 44, said he knows about the award. "I told him about it by telephone and there was silence. He was surprised. And later, after he recovered from the shock, he told me it's an award for all of Cuba's jailed journalists. He's very proud." Mr. Vázquez, 52, was among 75 dissidents, pro-democracy activists, librarians and journalists - some sentenced last spring to up to 28 years in prison - after the biggest crackdown on the political opposition in decades. (The Dallas Morning News, 25/11/03)
November 24, 2003: The European Union (EU) has announced that it will not enter into political dialogue with Cuba in December, as it has done for the past two years, and that it has no intention of revising its common position on the island. In an interview with the press, an official said that the basis for meeting simply was not there. Such meetings have been held annually since 2001. The next one was due to take place in the Cuban capital, Havana, next month but a recent crackdown on dissidence on the island followed by diplomatic sanctions from the EU have soured relations. (WMRC Daily Analysis, 25/11/03)
November 23, 2003: Political prisoners Miguel Galván Gutiérrez, Pablo Pacheco Avila, Alexis Rodríguez Fernández and Manuel Ubals Gonzáles all confined at the Prison Agüica, in Matanzas, wrote in jail a document titled "A Call From the Presidio", smuggled out of the prison thanks to the help of families of the common prisoners, informed dissident sources. "Today, while the civilized world unites against international terrorism and more nations enjoy full democracies, we watch with sadness and indignation how in our homeland, government authorities persecute, imprison and revile some of its citizens, for simply dissenting", indicated the document. (Puente Informativo, 23/11/03)
November 21, 2003: Oppositionist and prisoner of conscience Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello remains in the inmates' ward at the military hospital Carlos J. Finlay, in Havana, due to her frail health. (Cubanet, 21/11/03)
November 21, 2003: A Cuban writer who has been imprisoned since March, Manuel Vazquez Portal, is one of four recipients of the international press freedom awards of the Committee to Protect Journalists. (CPJ Press Release, 21/11/03)
November 18, 2003: Cuban authorities denied Blanca Reyes -- wife of Cuban jailed dissident Raúl Rivero -- authorization to travel to the United States on a family visit. (El Nuevo Herald, 18/11/03)
November 18, 2003: In a phone interview with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Cuban journalist Bernardo Rogelio Arévalo Padrón described physical and psychological torture at the hands of prison authorities. Arévalo Padrón was released after serving his six-year sentence on "disrespect" charges. "The allegations of torture are extremely troubling and warrant an immediate investigation," said CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper, "and increases our concern for the other 28 journalists in jail in Cuba who have alleged mistreatment." (EFE, CPJ, 18/11/03)
November 18, 2003: Oppositionist Oscar Elías Biscet has been transferred to a punishment cell in Kilo 8 Prison, Pinar del Río, after refusing to share a cell with a prisoner sanctioned for killing an old man. In a note sent to his wife, Elsa Morejón, Biscet says that he is well, "even though I don't see the sky, always in the dark with a murderous companion that has caused twelve lesions." (Puente Informativo, 18/11/03)
November 18, 2003: Over 150 US intellectuals of the democratic left sign a statement harshly criticizing repression in Cuba. (AP, 18/11/03)
November 14, 2003: Several anti-Castro organizations sent a letter to the heads of state meeting at the Ibero-American Summit in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. The letter calls for Cuba's exclusion of international fora. (Puente Informativo, 18/11/03)
November 14, 2003: A group that defends media freedom and imprisoned journalists worldwide has urged heads of state in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal to press the regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to release 75 political dissidents, who earlier in 2003 were arrested and sentenced to up to 28 years in prison. "Reporters Without Borders" said in a statement at the opening of the two-day Ibero-American Summit held in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, that the dissidents were working to "build democracy and the rule of law" in Cuba. Such work corresponded with the final declaration issued at the 2002 Ibero-American summit, said Reporters Without Borders. The imprisoned dissidents include journalists, human rights activists, trade unionists, librarians and political activists. (AFP, 14/11/03)
November 14, 2003: The Czech Protestant Church urged the Cuban government to release all political prisoners. In a letter sent to the Cuban embassy in Prague, leaders of that religious group said to be sending a message in favour of the 75 human rights activists and dissidents sentenced to between 15 and 28 years in jail earlier this year. (Radio Martí, 14/11/03)
November 14, 2003: The Independent Journalist María Josefa (Marilin) Díaz Fernández and her husband Lázaro González Ávila, a member of the Christian Liberation Movement in Camagüey, were beaten and then arrested by State Security agents in Sancti Spiritus. María Josefa denounced to correspondents of independent Lux Info Press the arbitrary actions that the political police committed against her and her husband at the Bus Terminal in Sancti Spiritus. Their trip back home, where Maria Josefa planned to recuperate from a recent illness, was interrupted. Police checked their luggage where the couple had copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to distribute in her province. (Puente Informativo, 15/11/03)
November 13, 2003: Cuban dissidents released a letter addressed to the Ibero-American leaders gathering in Bolivia, reminding them that while they discuss issues with representatives of the Castro regime, scores of prisoners of conscience are languishing in Cuban jails. Two coalitions claiming to represent more than 90 percent of Cuba's internal opposition called for a review of how each of the countries participating in the Ibero-American Summits "fulfills or breaches" resolutions adopted at the annual conclaves. Representatives of the All United Movement and the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society provided journalists with the text of the letter. The activists complained about the crackdown earlier this year that landed 75 dissidents, independent journalists and human rights activists in prison for terms averaging 20 years. As a result of these arrests, they said, Cuba has become the world leader in the number of prisoners of conscience relative to the size of its population. And even for those outside of jail, "the life of most of our fellow citizens is characterized by total deprivation of civil and political rights," the letter reads. (EFE, 13/11/03)
November 10, 2003: A report by Amnesty International states that "cases of spurious criminal charges filed against human rights activists, including journalists, and complaints of defamation or other forms of desacato (disrespect to authority) offences have risen dramatically over the last two years, especially in Cuba, Guatemala and Colombia". Speaking from Brazil during her first visit to the country, Irene Khan, Amnesty International's Secretary General, launched the report "Essential actors of our time: Human Rights defenders in the Americas. "Human rights activists are an essential component of an open civil society," Ms Khan said. (Amnesty International, 10/11/03)
November 8, 2003: Spain and Portugal criticized the way Cuban authorities have treated diplomatic missions accredited in Havana. However, they are willing to dialogue. These pronouncements are part of the conclusions of the Spanish-Portuguese Summit, which took place in Figueira da Foz, Portugal, under the presidency of the respective heads of states of Spain and Portugal, José María Aznar, and José Manuel Durao. (El Nuevo Herald, 9/11/03)
November 8, 2003: Clara Chepe, mother of dissident imprisoned Oscar Espinoza Chepe, has sent a letter to the Ibero-American Heads of State that will meet in Bolivia. In the letter, Clara denounces the ill treatment received by her son in jail, and asks the leaders to vote against Cuba at the 2004 UN Human Rights Commission, in Geneva. (Cubanet, 8/11/03)
November 5, 2003: Fidel Castro has been urged to release at least 24 jailed journalists, including three who have been on hunger strike since 18 October. The calls have come from the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum. The three prisoners, Mario Enrique Mayo, director of the independent press agency Felix Varela, Adolfo Fernández Saíz, a journalist with Patria Independent Agency, and Iván Hernández Carrillo, also a journalist, began the hunger strike to protest against the holding of Carrillo in a punishment cell. "We are particularly concerned about the poor physical condition of Mr. Mayo, Mr. Saíz and Mr. Carrillo, who have already been weakened by a previous hunger strike", the WAN and the WEF said in a letter to Castro, which called for the immediate release of the journalists. (Press Gazette, 6/11/03)
November 5, 2003: Cuba 's highest-profile advocate for democracy called on the UN General Assembly to condemn "the cruelty" with which the Fidel Castro regime treats its political prisoners. Oswaldo Paya, this year's winner of the European Union's Sakharov Award for the promotion of human rights, issued a statement, the day after the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the four-decade-old US embargo on trade with the Communist-ruled island nation. "If the governments represented in the United Nations are truly concerned about the welfare and the rights of the Cuban people, and are morally consistent, they must demand the Cuban government to stop its cruel and degrading treatment of political prisoners and release them," Paya said in a communique made public in Havana. "They must also demand the Cuban government respect human rights and the right of Cubans to peaceful changes leading to democracy," he added. (EFE, 5/11/023)
November 4, 2003: Once again the European Commission has condemned through its External Relations Commissioner, Chris Patten, "the ill-treatment of dissidents by Cuban authorities." "The European Union firmly objects to the continued imprisonments and Cuba's break of the moratorium on the death penalty," said Patten in the European Parliament. (EFE, 4/11/03).
November 3, 2003: Seven dissidents imprisoned at the Holguín Provincial Penitentiary - in the eastern part of the island - finished a sixteen-day hunger strike in protest against the treatment received from prison authorities. (El Nuevo Herald, 4/11/03)
November 1, 2003: Abel Escobar Ramírez, an independent journalist for Cuba Press, was released after having been detained for three days. Reporters Without Borders also reported that over 300 books and journals were confiscated by State Security agents from Jesús Alvarez Castillo, delegate of the independent Manuel Márquez Sterling Journalists Society in Ciego de Ávila province. The search in Alvarez Castillo's house lasted for more than three hours. (Encuentro en la Red, 4/11/03)
