Spotlight on Cuba: Crackdown on Dissidents

Chronology of Events

February 27, 2004: Cuban independent journalist Raul Rivero, who is serving 20 years behind bars, was "moved, surprised and happy" to find out that he was awarded the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize, his wife told the press. Rivero's wife, Blanca Reyes, broke the news to him over the phone. She said Rivero asked her to convey his gratitude to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and send a message "to the world's free journalists telling them he will uphold with dignity the name of the late Colombian journalist," referring to Guillermo Cano whose name is that of the Award. (EFE, 28/2/04)

February 26, 2004: Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister, Felipe Pérez Roque, refused to receive a letter signed by over twenty Argentinean lawmakers asking for the liberation of 75 Cuban dissidents. The letter was handed over to Roque by lawmakers Martín Borrelli (Frente Compromiso para el Cambio) and Fernanda Ferrero (Unión por Buenos Aires) minutes before the minister's meeting with the mayor of Buenos Aires. Pérez Roque didn't accept the letter saying that "there are no political prisoners in Cuba." (Encuentro en La Red, 27/2/04)

February 25, 2004: The State Department issued its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The report found that human rights abuses in Cuba "worsened dramatically" as the regime of Fidel Castro continued to commit numerous serious abuses and denied Cuba's citizens the right to change their government. The report pointed to the sentencing of 75 dissidents to lengthy prison terms for exercising their fundamental rights as evidence of the government's poor performance. The report was also critical of the Castro regime for ignoring petitions, which contained thousands of signatures, calling for a national referendum on political and economic reforms. (EFE, 26/2/04)

February 24, 2004: A UN organization has awarded its World Press Freedom Prize to Cuban journalist Raúl Rivero Castañeda, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said it gave Mr. Rivero the prize for his "brave and long-standing commitment to independent reporting." The group also said it is concerned about the conditions in which Mr. Rivero is being held, and called on Cuba to release him and other reporters. Last April, Rivero and 25 other journalists were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on charges of undermining Cuba's communist government. (VOA, 24/2/04)

February 23, 2004: Cuban independent economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, is "gravely ill" and the doctors who are treating him "are contributing to his death", declared his mother, Clara Chepe Núñez. Espinosa Chepe's mother, who is 95 years old, sent a letter to the foreign media to report the prison conditions in which her son is being held. He is in a State Security cell in the Carlos J. Finlay Military Hospital in Havana. (BBC, 23/2/04)

February 23, 2004: The prisoner of conscience Julio Antonio Valdés Guevara was transported in critical health condition from the Canaleta prison, in the central province of Ciego de Avila, to the Julio Trigo hospital, in Havana. Valdés Guevara, director of the Independent Library Martyrs of the Tug Boat "March 13", was arrested last March in Manzanillo as part of last year's repressive wave and later sentenced to 20 years in jail. (Puente Informativo, 23/2/04)

February 22, 2004: On the first anniversary of the last wave of repression against the Cuban internal opposition in March and April of 2003, the School of Independent Educators of Cuba announced a symbolic fast on the 18 and 19 of March in favor of the liberation of the Cuban political prisoners and those of conscience. "We cannot allow this date to pass without condemning these acts, because we would be leaving our brothers in prison without a voice", said to Lux-Info-Press Soledad Rivas Verdecía, wife of Roberto de Miranda Hernandez, president of the School of Independent Educators of Cuba and Director of the Varela Project, unjustly serving a sentence of 20 years in prison. (Puente Informativo, 22/2/04)

February 17, 2004: A United Nations envoy has published a scathing report on Cuba's treatment of political dissidents in prison. In a report produced for next month's annual session of the UN Human Rights Commission, Christine Chanet noted that the dissidents were tried and criticized their convictions within weeks or days of their arrests last year and the fact that the trials were closed to the public. Chanet, who prepared her report based on meetings with activists, human-rights investigators and other governments, said she has information that the dissidents are kept in very poor conditions, either in total isolation or in overcrowded cells with common criminals. They are often moved from one prison to another, making it difficult for their families to visit them. Chanet said she also was concerned about the April 11 execution of three Cubans who hijacked a ferry to try to reach the United States. She also noted that Cuba continues to suffer from the "disastrous and persistent" effects of the US economic embargo that has been in place for more than 40 years. "The extreme tension between Cuba and the United States creates a climate that is unfavorable to the development of freedom of expression and assembly," she said. "US laws and the financial support given to 'the building of democracy in Cuba' make political opponents on the island look like sympathizers with foreigners." Nevertheless, she said, it was up to the Cuban government to avoid making its people suffer any more than they already are. (CNN, BBC, 17/2/04)

February 17, 2004: French Member of Parliament, Yves Bur, asked the Cuban Ambassador in Paris permission to visit two political prisoners he sponsors. They are brothers José Daniel and Luis Enrique Ferrer García. Bur, also Vice-President of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), expressed during his meeting with Ambassador Eumelio Caballero that "the situation of Cuban prisoners of conscience is unacceptable," according to a release by the French MP. (AFP, 17/2/04)

February 10, 2004: Relatives of the 75 prisoners of conscience sentenced to long prison terms last April are collecting signatures in support of an amnesty for all political prisoners in the country. According to article 63 of the Cuban Constitution, 10,000 signatures are needed for any such initiative to be considered. (Cubanet, 10/2/04)

February 10, 2004: Cuban authorities defended their human rights record, saying much of the criticism directed at the communist island has come from groups whose only aim is to bring down the government. "Even those who say they are friends, while pointing to Cuba as a model in the application of economic, social and cultural rights, criticize us in terms of what they call civil rights," said deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno during the presentation of a new government-sponsored book on the subject. Fabio Raimundo Torrado, author of "Human Rights in the Cuban Political System," told reporters that the contemporary concept of "human rights" is based more on political and cultural points of view -- "a European fruit, born of the Bourgeois revolution" that governments then began imposing on the rest of the world. (AFP, 10/2/04)

February 3, 2004: The People in Need Czech humanitarian organisation has supported dissidents and families of political prisoners in Cuba for seven years and its delegation visited some of them recently, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) reports. Selected families of imprisoned Cuban dissidents will receive a one-off humanitarian aid of 200 dollars from the money collected within the SOS Cuba public fund raising, MfD notes. "Our aim is simple. We have been trying by all means to support democratic forces in Cuba," People in Need director Tomas Pojar told the paper. (CTK, 3/2/04)

February 2, 2004: A group of Chilean senators on an official visit in Cuba met with dissident leader Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz to talk about the situation of civil, political and economic rights on the island. The delegation also met with Cuba's Vice-President Carlos Lage, and the President of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón. (Europa Press, 2/2/04)

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