July 12, 2007

Message from the Ladies in White to the XXXI Ordinary Assembly of The Latin American Episcopal Council

Eminences:

The Ladies in White are much honored to welcome you to Havana, Cuba. At the same time, we have great hopes to receive your blessing, your prayers, and for your concern to gain an understanding and contribute to relieve the daily hardships faced by our pacific prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, the Cuban Catholics, the followers of other religions and the general population that for almost five decades have seen no glimpse of change in the immediate future.

Our prisoners of conscience do not have the possibility to receive religious assistance in the prisons; on very few occasions, it is permitted. Since the Cuban government does not recognize their status as prisoners of conscience, they are mixed with common, dangerous inmates. The government will not fulfill the Minimum Standards for the Treatment of Prisoners set by the United Nations, nor will it authorize prestigious organizations, such as the International Red Cross and Amnesty International to have access to the prisons. The prison conditions are deplorable for all inmates, including the tens of thousands common prisoners, mostly young black males. Most of our loved ones have undergone an alarming deterioration of their health during their four years of incarceration, without receiving adequate medical assistance.

Our families have been subjected to various forms of psychological torture, with particular suffering by our children and our elders as they cannot visit our loved ones in prison because they are hundreds of kilometers away, in a country where means of transportation are almost nonexistent. We, the Ladies in White, are watched and repressed for being the voices of these prisoners of conscience and for demanding appropriate prison conditions for them, but fundamentally for demanding their immediate and unconditional freedom, since they have committed no crime. These men have only tried to exercise their right to freedom of expression for the benefit of our people.

Eminences, we place great hopes in the intervention of the Holy Father Benedict XVI before the Cuban authorities, as well as the intercession of Your Eminences, for the immediate and unconditional release of the 75 prisoners of conscience incarcerated in March 2003 and the rest of the Cuban pacific political prisoners and, while this does not occur, that they have religious assistance, medical treatment and suitable prison conditions.

We wish you to achieve your evangelization objectives and to contribute to the advancement of democracy and the respect of human rights in Cuba.

DAMAS DE BLANCO
(Ladies in White)


 

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