Is it really Friday again already?

Brian Marshall
Information Librarian (Social Sciences)
University of Leicester Library
PO Box 248
Leicester LE1 9QD
Tel: 0116 2525288 Fax: 0116 2522066 Email: [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: David Little [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 16 November 2000 16:34
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: re: Librarian Beseiged and Threatened


Dear lis-linkers

I would like to enquire of other list members as to whether they
links this is an appropriate posting (Robert Kent, Friends of Cuban
Libraries update (15/11/00) - text pasted below).

While I personally believe it is of paramount importance to debate
big issues on this list (in addition to asking to borrow videos etc), it
seems to me this report is very partisan and biased and Mr Kent is
seeking very much to push his own personal agenda (which it has
been *alleged* is the agenda of the US government which has
adopted an agressively hostile policy towards Cuba for the last 40
years).

Would it not be more appropriate to send an email with a link to a
site where this kind of report can be read rather than bombarding
list members with the full-text?

If people would be interested to hear *both* sides of the story about
Cuban libraries, a good place to look is at the Library Juice
Website ( http://www.libr.org/Juice/ ) which produces digests of
news items and has given good coverage to the Cuba debate and
is not just the propaganda of one organisation.

David Little










Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 10:35:36 EST
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Librarian Beseiged and Threatened
Message-Id: <[log in to unmask]>

                                 News Bulletin
                      The Friends of Cuban Libraries
                          Date: November 15, 2000

                  LIBRARIAN BESIEGED AND THREATENED

      Recent news reports indicate an intensification of government
efforts
to halt the expansion of Cuba's independent library movement,
especially in
the eastern provinces of the island. In an innovative challenge to a
government monopoly on sources of information, more than sixty
independent,
uncensored libraries have now opened their doors throughout Cuba,
offering
public access to reading materials which reflect all points of view,
not just
the officially-approved ideology. The government's persecution of
Cuba's
beleaguered independent librarians has been condemned by the
International
Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), Amnesty International,
and a
growing number of library associations and human rights groups
throughout the
world. This news bulletin will focus on events in the eastern city of
Santiago, where the security forces have been especially active in
recent
weeks.

      On Thursday, November 9, the independent Antonio Maceo
Grajales
Library, located at 14 Escudero Street in Santiago, was scheduled
to be the
site of a seminar conducted by a non-government teachers'
organization. The
theme of the seminar was "Pre-University Education and a Point of
Departure
for Democratic Education in Cuba." Before the event could took
place,
however, a detachment of State Security police blocked off nearby
streets and
banned public access to the library, forcing a cancelation of the
seminar.
This news is contained in report filed by Ricardo Gonzales and
published in
the Nov. 13 issue of the CubaNet database (www.cubanet.org).

      Later the same day, at about nine o'clock at night, the director
of the
Antonio Maceo Grajales Library, Marcia Perez Castillo, was
accosted by an
unidentified man while walking in a street near the library. The
man,
dressed in civilian clothes, reportedly threatened Ms. Perez
Castillo,
telling her: "If you continue using your house and telephone to
carry out
counterrevolutionary activities, you're going to have big problems."
This
news is contained in a report filed by Milagros Beaton of the APLO
press
agency (CubaNet, Nov. 15, 2000). This incident is not the first
time
independent librarians have been threatened in Santiago. As
confirmed in a
landmark report published by IFLA in Septmber, 1999, a
children's
librarian, Alfredo Dennis Camps, was the target of death threats by
unidentified persons. On two occasions, also confirmed by IFLA,
Santiago's
Eduardo Rene Chibas Library was surrounded by groups of
uniformed men who
fired volleys of gunfire into the air as an act of intimidation.

       In other recent events, the director of Santiago's independent
Jose
Mayia Rodriguez Library, Zocima Simoneau Vidal, was questioned
by the State
Security police on November 7. After an interrogation recorded on
videotape,
 she was released with a warning that she could be charged with
"defamation."
  In September two other independent librarians were arrested in
Santiago.
Edel Jimenez was fined after being convicted of "disobedience,"
while unknown
charges are still pending against Rolando Bestart. In in early 1999
Mr.
Bestart was arrested for allegedly "selling illegal drugs," although
he was
not prosecuted. On December 24, 1999, Mr. Bestart was removed
from Christmas
Eve mass in Santiago's cathedral and beaten by agents of the State Security
police.

     ACTION TO BE TAKEN: The Friends of Cuban Libraries ask you to send
courteous e-mail messages to Cuban officials requesting an end to the
persecution of the independent librarians. Judging from an unprecedented
flurry of responses from government officials, your message WILL have an
impact. President Fidel Castro may be contacted via the following e-mail
address:
[log in to unmask]
. Please send any responses received to the
Friends of Cuban Libraries.

    MEDIA COVERAGE: The government is showing a heightened
sensitivity to
negative publicity by the international mass media. For example,
please read
a new Associated Press article ("Independent Libraries Crop Up in
Communist
Cuba") published on CNN.COM at
(www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/11/12/reading.freedom.ap/in
dex.html).

    BACKGROUND: The Friends of Cuban Libraries, founded in
June, 1999, is an
independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit support group for the
independent
librarians. We are concerned exclusively with intellectual freedom
issues,
as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
regardless of
whatever government may be in office in Cuba. We are funded
entirely be our
members and do not seek or accept funding from other sources.
For more
information, contact us by e-mail ([log in to unmask] or
telephone (USA)
718-340-8494. Mailing address: Robert Kent, 4-74 48th Avenue, #3-
C, Long
Island City, NY 11109 USA.


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