"Yet, here is the ALA with its rallying cry, 'Free People Read Freely,' 
abandoning these extraordinarily courageous Cuban librarians..."

A BRAVE NEW  WORLD

By Nat Hentoff (Washington Times Op-Ed, 12-8-03)
    
    What has particularly irritated the attorney general is the vigorous 
dissent of many American librarians to Section 215 of John Ashcroft's Patriot Act, 
which allows the FBI to match lists of certain books with their borrowers as 
part of investigations into terrorism. The attorney general finally declared 
he is not using that provision of the act, but librarians point out that he did 
not say he will never implement it in the future. 
    Accordingly, more and more librarians are informing people who come to 
the libraries about that law, and suggest they urge the attorney general to 
protect their right to read without being put into a government database. 
    Meanwhile, however, the American Library Association (ALA), with its more 
than 64,000 members, is ignoring a much more pressing human rights issue. The 
organization refuses to condemn Fidel Castro for sending to his gulag, for 
prison terms of up to 28 years, 10 independent Cuban librarians — who were 
included among the 75 independent journalists, union organizers, economists, human 
rights workers and other dissidents who were rounded up. The librarians resist 
the dictator's censorship of ideas, as do all those captured in the raids. 
    This crackdown on freedom of speech — and freedom to read — took place 
last April at summary trials in remote locations that were closed to foreign 
journalists. Amnesty International considers these 75 dissidents, including the 
independent librarians, to be "prisoners of conscience." 
    Yet, at the ALA's annual conference last June in Toronto, Cuban 
independent librarians were refused a speaking place on the program. Only Mr. Castro's 
official librarians were accorded the freedom to speak — for nearly three 
hours. And there was no ALA resolution to demand that Cuba's leader release the 
independent librarians. Some of them — like a number of other prisoners of 
conscience in Castro's gulag — badly need and are being denied medical attention. 
    Declaring "the fundamental rights of all human beings to access 
information without restriction," the International Federation of Library Associations 
and Institutions in The Hague has condemned this brutal suppression of 
nonviolent dissent. And Jose Miguel Vivanco — executive director of the Americas 
Division of Human Rights Watch — says "Cuba is flouting fundamental human rights 
norms." 
    Moreover, in a Sept. 18 Washington Post article, Vaclav Havel, former 
president of the Czech Republic; Lech Walesa, former president of Poland; and 
Arpad Goncz, former president of Hungary joined to condemn Mr. Castro's draconian 
imprisonment of Cubans "merely for daring to express an opinion other than 
the official one." 
    And in the July issue of the Progressive magazine, a long list of 
Americans who dissent from their own government — among them:historian Howard Zinn; 
linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky; Progressive Editor Matthew 
Rothschild; and philosopher Cornel West — condemn Mr. Castro's arrests and "the 
shockingly long prison sentences ... imposed after unfair trials" of the Cuban 
dissidents, including the independent librarians. 
    The signers of that ad oppose the American embargo on Cuba, but emphasize 
that "the imprisonment of people for attempting to exercise their rights of 
free expression is outrageous and unacceptable. We call on the Castro 
government to release all political prisoners and let the Cuban people speak, write and 
organize freely." 
    Yet, here is the ALA with its rallying cry, "Free People Read Freely," 
abandoning these extraordinarily courageous Cuban librarians, who, under a 
dictatorship, advocate, to their own great peril, the same right to read freely 
that we Americans enjoy. The ALA's membership booklet proclaims "the public's 
right to explore in their libraries many points of view on all questions and 
issues facing them." 
    In our American libraries, we can borrow George Orwell's "1984" and a 
copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but those, and many other 
publications, were only available in Cuba in the homes of the independent 
librarians who dared to offer them to their fellow citizens. 
    The ALA will have its next Midwinter Meeting from Jan. 9 to Jan. 14 in 
San Diego. Those in attendance — ALA officials, including officers of libraries 
around the country and rank-and-file members — will have a chance to rescind 
the shameful silence of the ALA. 
    Mr. Ashcroft has put none of the delegates to San Diego in prison; and it 
takes no courage — only self-respect — for them to insist on the freedom of 
those librarians in Cuba who may not be "professional" librarians. But they 
certainly are the very exemplars of the ALA's purported dedication to everyone's 
freedom to read — and freedom of conscience. 
    The next time you go to a public library, ask the librarians if they 
stand with their colleagues in Mr. Castro's prisons.