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March 26, 2004

Write the Times: Ask for Release of the Prisoners

Instructions for writing the Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/14READ.html

The New York Times has a wonderful editorial today, March 26, condemning the March, 2003 crackdown in Cuba. The editorial specifically mentions the independent librarians now languishing in prison, along with journalists and writers, and goes on to describe the other "crimes": "writing for Web sites based abroad, setting up independent libraries that offer books by the likes of Vaclav Havel and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and collecting signatures, in accordance with the Cuban Constitution, to petition for a referendum on fundamental reforms."

Please write the Times, praise their editorial, and call for the release of the 75 dissidents, including the independent librarians. The Times noted that the U.N. Commission on Human Rights was considering "whether to condemn the Castro regime." You may want to state that the U.N. should call for the immediate release of the dissidents or at minimum, ask for their wretched prison conditions to be improved.

Note that, like the Times, you can critique Washington for providing excellent cover for Castro's crackdown--organizations such as Amnesty International have said that for a year. But two wrongs do not make a right. Let the Times know how you feel about crimes against free expression, everywhere.

Posted by kgs at March 26, 2004 09:21 AM

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