Cuba: "A Giant Prison"
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/107364/1/.html
PRAGUE : Former Czech president Vaclav Havel described Cuba as "a giant prison", as he called for international mobilisation to persuade the country to commit to a peaceful transition to democracy.
"Cuba is a giant prison. We have to put up alarm bells around the walls," he said. "With every signature, every conference we make another step towards freedom in Cuba."
The former playwright dissident, who himself spent five years in communist prisons, was speaking on the second day of a summit on Cuba attended by European and American former heads of state and governments, parliamentarians and human rights capaigners in Prague.
The summit was organized by the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC), founded one year ago at the initiative of Havel with the help of former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Polish dissident Adam Michnik and former Russian dissident Elena Bonner.
It was staged 18 months after the arrests in March 2003 of 75 Cuban opponents of the Castro regime and their sentencing to up to 28 years imprisonment.
They included the poet and writer Raul Rivero, who according to his wife is in a poor state of health.
"This summit is important as the least signature of a petition is important. All this creates pressure," said Havel.
"It is inconceivable and unacceptable that people continue to be imprisoned in Cuba because of their ideas and their peaceful politics," said a final declaration issued at the summit, named the Prague Memorandum.
- AFP
PRAGUE : Former Czech president Vaclav Havel described Cuba as "a giant prison", as he called for international mobilisation to persuade the country to commit to a peaceful transition to democracy.
"Cuba is a giant prison. We have to put up alarm bells around the walls," he said. "With every signature, every conference we make another step towards freedom in Cuba."
The former playwright dissident, who himself spent five years in communist prisons, was speaking on the second day of a summit on Cuba attended by European and American former heads of state and governments, parliamentarians and human rights capaigners in Prague.
The summit was organized by the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC), founded one year ago at the initiative of Havel with the help of former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Polish dissident Adam Michnik and former Russian dissident Elena Bonner.
It was staged 18 months after the arrests in March 2003 of 75 Cuban opponents of the Castro regime and their sentencing to up to 28 years imprisonment.
They included the poet and writer Raul Rivero, who according to his wife is in a poor state of health.
"This summit is important as the least signature of a petition is important. All this creates pressure," said Havel.
"It is inconceivable and unacceptable that people continue to be imprisoned in Cuba because of their ideas and their peaceful politics," said a final declaration issued at the summit, named the Prague Memorandum.
- AFP
posted by Robert at 6:54 AM
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