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NEWS
Cuba's dissidents seek international summit platform to make their case
Tue Nov 11, 1:47 PM ET
HAVANA (AFP) - Prominent Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya made an
impassioned appeal to organizers of an Ibero-American summit this week
to speak out on human rights in communist-ruled Cuba.
Paya, a Christian democrat who won the European Parliament's 2002
Sakharov Prize, has spearheaded an initiative seeking political and
economic reforms under Cuba's constitution. Cuban leader Fidel Castro
has rejected it out of hand.
"Silence has been the watchword at all the summits," Paya said in a
letter released to the foreign media Tuesday, even "given the grave
human rights situation in Cuba."
Cuba, the only one-party communist state in the Americas, has been
widely criticized for a crackdown on dissidents that saw 75 opponents of
Castro jailed in April for up to 28 years.
Monday, eight of those convicted after Havana's toughest crackdown in
years, charged in a letter smuggled out of "Kilo 5-1/2" jail that they
were being subject to "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment."
Oscar Elias Biscet (sentenced to 25 years), Hector Palacios (25), Jose
Ferrer (25), Leonel Grave de Peralta (20), Arturo Perez Alejo (20),
Diosdado Gonzalez (20), Normando Hernandez (25) and Jose Izquierdo (16)
signed the letter noting "we are not asking for clemency; we want
justice."
Paya appealed for permission for a statement on the Cuban situation to
be read to the leaders at the summit of Spain, Portugal and their former
colonies in the Americas, to be held in Santa Cruz, Bolivia on Friday
and Saturday.
"We aren't asking for anything and there will not be calls" for specific
action, Paya said in a letter. "Judge and decide for yourselves, your
excellencies, as a reflection of the spirit of freedom of the people you
represent, what you should do" about Cuba's lack of freedoms.
"We are asking for a space at this summit ... in the name of all of
those who are working peacefully for the rights of all citizens and in
defense of those who are marginalized, the poor and marginalized
majority in their own country," Paya continued in the letter.
It would be "the voice of Cubans who do not have a voice in Cuba, and
denying this to them would be extending to the summit the exclusion of
the regime in power" in Cuba, he wrote.
Paya's appeal came a day after relatives of the 75 dissidents, now
jailed for terms of as long as 28 years for "subversion", sent a leller
to Castro pleading for their release.
On October 3 Paya delivered more than 14,000 more signatures backing the
Varela Project requesting a referendum on political and economic change.
The Varela Project petition requests a referendum on five points --
freedom of expression and association, freedom of enterprise (news - web
sites), amnesty for political prisoners, a new electoral law and, if the
referendum is approved, elections within a year.
More than 11,000 signatures were collected for the petition last year,
but the Cuban legislature threw it out in January, deeming it
unconstitutional.
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