June 15, 2009
Jan Fischer Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, President of the
European Council
José Manuel Durão Barroso President of the European Commission
Dear Sirs,
The Committee to Protect Journalists urges you, as the president of the
European Council and President of the European Commission, to take
concrete steps to ensure that Cuba complies with the 2008 EU human
rights conditions by immediately releasing the 22 journalists currently
jailed and by granting freedom of expression and information to all Cubans.
During the June 2008 meeting of the European Council, the EU agreed to
lift the diplomatic sanctions it had imposed on Cuba in 2003, following
that year's massive crackdown on independent journalists and dissidents
by Fidel Castro's regime, provided that Cuba improve its human rights
record. A year later, another independent journalist has been jailed,
and Cuban authorities have shown unwillingness to soften restrictions on
freedom of information, including Cubans' access to the Internet. In the
wake of this week's meeting of the European Council, CPJ calls on you
and the other 26 EU heads of state and government that make up the
Council to use verifiable benchmarks for monitoring human rights in Cuba
to ensure that Cuba effectively complies with the conditions or
requirements imposed by the EU.
From March 18-20, 2003, agents with Cuba's State Security arrested 75
dissidents, including 29 journalists. Weeks later, Cuban authorities
held summary closed-door trials and handed sentences of up to 24 years
in prison to the accused, who were declared prisoners of conscience by
Amnesty International. As a response to the crackdown, the EU imposed
conditions or requirements on Cuba that included a ban on high-ranking
official visits by Cuban authorities to EU countries. In June 2008,
however, the Council of the European Union agreed to suspend the
sanctions under the condition that human rights conditions improve on
the island.
Under those conditions, the Cuban government should have unconditionally
released all political prisoners. Instead, two other independent
journalists have been imprisoned since 2003. In May, Albert Santiago Du
Bouchet Hernández, director of the Havana-based independent news agency
Habana Press, was sentenced during a summary trial to three years in
prison on charges of "disrespect" and distributing enemy propaganda. In
April 2007, freelance reporter Oscar Sánchez Madan was convicted of
"social dangerousness," and given the maximum sentence of four years in
prison.
Over the past six years, Cuba has freed a small number of journalists
and dissidents in exchange for international political concessions, CPJ
research has found. However, 22 reporters and editors remain in prison,
making Cuba the world's second-leading jailer of journalists, after
China. Imprisoned journalists live in inhumane conditions. Their health
is deteriorating, and their families are harassed by local authorities,
CPJ research shows.
To date, no international humanitarian organizations have visited any of
the imprisoned Cuban journalists. Nor has the Cuban government ratified
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides
"the right to freedom of expression," or the International Covenant on
Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, both signed in February 2008 by
then-Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque.
In our annual report, Attacks on the Press in 2008, CPJ noted that there
are extensive restrictions on Internet access in Cuba. In a recent
report on worldwide online repression, CPJ ranked the island as the
fourth-worst country in the world to be a blogger. Only government
officials and people with links to the Communist Party have Web access.
The general population is only able to go online at hotels or
government-controlled Internet cafes by means of expensive voucher
cards. A small number of independent bloggers detail everyday life and
offer criticism of the regime on Web sites that are hosted outside the
country and largely blocked on the island. In a country where the
government has complete control of the media, independent journalists
working for foreign-based Internet news sites continue to be threatened
and harassed by Cuba's secret police.
In 2008, the EU announced that its relations with Cuba would be reviewed
annually after an assessment of the progress and commitment made by the
Cuban government on issues that included human rights. CPJ sent European
Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel a letter
on June 25, 2008, and a second in March 2009 urging the EU to hold Cuba
accountable for press abuses. Michel has not yet responded to CPJ's
concerns.
We urge you to address these issues during the upcoming meeting of the
Council of the European Union by creating a set of benchmarks that can
be verified in order to ensure that the EU conditions for the
improvement of human rights will be effectively met. As part of these
criteria, the EU must call on the government of Cuban President Raúl
Castro Ruz to immediately and unconditionally release all journalists
unjustly imprisoned for exercising their basic human right to free
expression and grant freedom of information to all Cubans.
Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Executive Director
CPJ urges EU leaders to take action in Cuba - Committee to Protect
Journalists (15 June 2009)
http://cpj.org/2009/06/cpj-urges-eu-leaders-to-take-action-in-cuba.php
No comments:
Post a Comment