Europeans decry Cuba's
refusal to let women get prize
Dominican
Today, Dominican
Republic, December 13, 2005.
Strasbourg, France.- Both the conservatives
and the Socialists who make up the bulk
of the European Parliament blasted on Tuesday
the Cuban Communist regime's refusal to
allow several women rights activists to
fly to France to receive a prestigious award.
Cuba's Women in White, an organization
of female relatives of political prisoners,
shares this year's Sakharov Prize with Nigerian
human rights lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim and Paris-based
Reporters Without Borders, a press-freedom
watchdog.
The award is given annually by the European
Parliament, and this year's presentation
ceremony is set for Wednesday.
"I call on the Cuban authorities to
let them depart. If they do not, we will
be obliged to again harshly criticize (one
of) the last Communist dictatorships on
the planet," said Germany's Hans-Gert
Poettering, the head of the center-right
European Popular Party.
"We reject the Cuban stance and are
going to protest," said the head of
the Socialist bloc, Martin Schulz, who also
is German.
Cuban democracy advocate and rights activist
Oswaldo Paya was awarded the Sakharov Prize
in 2002. He was allowed to fly to Europe
at the last minute to receive it.
Cuba's 47-year-old one-party state is one
of the few in the world that requires of
its citizens official permission to leave
the country.
The Women in White movement includes wives,
mothers, sisters, daughters and other female
relatives of the 75 dissidents arrested
and sentenced in spring 2003 to jail terms
averaging 20 years. The prisoners - mostly
democracy advocates and independent journalists
and librarians - were convicted of "undermining
the revolution."
"I believe they are not going to call
us. It's not that we have lost hope, and
there is no discouragement, because though
we won't be there, the award will be given
to us. It won't be in Strasbourg, but we
will receive the prize," Women in White
member and spokesperson Miriam Leiva told
the press in Havana on Monday.
Clad in white to symbolize both peace and
the innocence of their jailed relatives,
the Women in White hold meetings and vigils,
attend Mass together every Sunday and mount
peaceful protest marches through the streets
of Havana.
The women sometimes are harassed during
their pro-rights activities by pro-government
throngs.
The speaker of the European Parliament,
Spanish Socialist Josep Borrell, said Monday
that "everything possible is being
done" to prevail on Havana to let the
woman make the trip to Strasbourg.
He commented in response to a question
on the floor of the parliament from Spanish
conservative Jose Ignacio Salafranca, who
urged Borrell to exert "all his efforts"
on behalf of the Women in White, who "have
committed no offense other than to bravely
defend the rights of their family members."
The parliament has organized a number of
events for the prize recipients, including
appearances before the body's human rights
commission, a press conference, the awards
ceremony and a luncheon with Borrell.
The prize, which honors the memory of Soviet
dissident and Nobel peace laureate Andrei
Sakharov (1921-1989), is conferred on individuals
and organizations that work to protect human
rights and ethnic minorities, advance international
cooperation and promote democracy and the
rule of law.
Past winners include South Africa's Nelson
Mandela, the Argentine rights group Mothers
of the Plaza de Mayo and U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan.
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