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From: [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 03 February 2000 23:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Protest Erupts at Book Fair
Attached below is information on the growing worldwide protest against
the repression of independent librarians in Cuba. The protest at the
Havana Book Fair is likely to result in a crackdown against the
librarians. You (yes, you personally) can help to prevent this
injustice if you will only take the brief amount of time needed to
send a message to your Member of Parliament or Member of Congress,
urging them to take action. In addition, please write to the Cuban
Embassy or Interests Section in your country. To send an immediate
appeal to Cuba, please fax courteous messages to the chief of the
State Security police, General Colome-Ibarra (fax number:
011-53-7-33-5261) and to Mr. Abel Prieto, the Cuban Minister of
Culture (fax number: 011-53-7-33-3013). Please post this message on
listserves.
Robert Kent
Friends of Cuban Libraries
PROTEST ERUPTS AT CUBAN
BOOK FAIR
Today, February 3, as foreign publishers made travel plans to attend
the Havana International Book Fair (February 9-15), the Friends of
Cuban Libraries released an Open Letter to the publishers signed by
more than thirty authors. The letter, entitled "Book Fair or Carnival
of Persecution?," urges publishers at the Fair to make protests to
government officials against the "scandalous" oppression of Cuba's
independent librarians, whom the authors describe as "the only
librarians in the world who are being subjected to systematic
persecution."
In an attempt to establish a civil society in Cuba, the island nation
has recently seen the opening of more than thirty independent
libraries with the goal of offering access to books that are banned
under Cuba's harsh system of censorship. Citing reports and
statements by Amnesty International, the International PEN
organization of writers, and the International Federation of Library
Associations (IFLA), the authors signing the the Open Letter condemn
the government's effort to suppress the independent librarians through
a campaign of harassment, intimidation, death threats, police raids,
evictions, short-term arrests, and confiscations. "To remain silent
on this important matter...," the authors admonish the publishers,
"would be an act of moral cowardice and would constitute silent
support for this unprecedented violation of intellectual freedom on
the part of the Cuban government." In addition to public and private
protests, the authors also urge the publishers attending the Book Fair
to carry out other acts of solidarity such as visits to the
independent librarians in Havana.
Another cause of dismay surrounding the Book Fair is the fact that it
will be held in Havana's La Cabana fortress, notorious as the former
site of a harsh prison where the Castro administration carried out
hundreds of executions. Jorge Valls, one of the authors signing the
Open Letter, spent part of his 20-year prison term in La Cabana prison
after being convicted of refusing to register for the military draft.
In his published memoirs, Mr. Valls recalled his grim experience in
La Cabana prison: "Night was no time for rest. On the contrary, that
was when the horrors began. At nine or so the executions would
start.... We could hear the prisoner being tied to the pole, his
last cries, the command to fire, the volley.... The last sound would
be the screech of the night bird coming to peck at the pieces of flesh
that still clung to the pole and the wall."
Mr. Valls, now a member of the Friends of Cuban Libraries, says, "A
number of the publishers going to the Book Fair have already agreed to
carry out actions in support of the independent librarians, and we
hope others will bravely follow their example."
Among the many prominent authors signing the Open Letter are Guillermo
Cabrera Infante, a winner of Spain's prestigious Cervantes Prize for
literature, Heberto Padilla, a renowned poet whose arrest and show
trial in 1971 sparked worldwide indignation, Carlos Franqui, a former
editor of the Cuban newspaper "Revolucion," Zoe Valdes, a rising star
among the younger generation of Cuban writers, Maria Elena Cruz
Varela, a poet who suffered permanent injuries after being attacked
during a government-directed mob assault, and the noted Mexican
writers Carlos Monsivais and Jorge Castaneda; the latter is an
acclaimed biographer of Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
The Friends of Cuban Libraries, founded in June, 1999, is an
independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit support group for the independent
librarians. The organization opposes censorship and all other
violations of intellectual freedom, as defined by the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, regardless of whatever administration may
be in office in Cuba. The Friends are funded entirely by their
members and do not seek or accept contributions from other sources.
For more information, contact Robert Kent: telephone (USA)
718-340-8494; e-mail: [log in to unmask]; or by mail: 474 48th Avenue,
Apt.
3-C, Long Island City, NY 11109 USA.
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