Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-01-Speech-3-097"
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"en.20060201.13.3-097"2
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"Madam President, Mr President-in–Office of the Council, somewhat overshadowed by the dramatic events in the Middle East, there is, in Havana, a bearded dictator who has mocked the world for decades. He rules over a country in which human rights are violated, in which the people live in great poverty and in which dissidents are imprisoned and persecuted. After China, Cuba is the world’s biggest prison for journalists.
In the spring of 2003, a wave of oppression swept over the island. Leading figures in the democracy movement were arrested and, after farcical trials, 75 of them were sentenced to long prison terms. Last year, a large group of young people were arrested as a preventative measure, the idea being that they might cause trouble. That shows just how much fear there is on the island. When, immediately before Christmas, the European Parliament awarded its Sakharov Prize to the Ladies in White – the wives and daughters of the imprisoned dissidents – representatives of the movement were not allowed to leave the island in order to travel to Strasbourg.
Cuba is a horrendous dictatorship, and the facts I have just mentioned are well known. In recent years, the situation has deteriorated. For political prisoners, the situation is very serious. My friend Héctor Palacios, who was given a 25-year prison sentence, is very ill, and the doctors fear for his life. He is not receiving help for his high blood pressure and the complications surrounding his heart condition. To cite another example, Adolfo Fernandez Seinz too – a journalist sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment - is in poor health and has lost 20 kilos in weight since he was imprisoned.
Outside prison, dissidents too are being persecuted, for example the Sakharov Prize winner Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas and the blind human rights activist Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, who has been under house arrest since April 2004. It is, of course, completely unacceptable that people should still be kept imprisoned in Cuba because of their views. It is equally unacceptable that these prisoners should not receive the help they need when they are in a very poor state of health.
When, a year ago, the Council of Ministers made up its mind to change the common position it had had for many years and, instead, began to talk with the regime, it imagined it could see some kind of opening up in Cuba, with possibilities there. A majority in this Chamber criticised that policy and, a year later, it has to be acknowledged that the policy has had no effect. It was a wrong decision, and it should be reviewed. What does the Council intend to do now in order to support the dissidents in Cuba? How are we constructively to support the democracy movement and the Cuban people? We must increase the pressure on Fidel Castro and, at the same time, find a strategic way of identifying the positive forces of democracy that exist. Why is it so difficult to support the forces of democracy in Cuba when it is possible to do so in Belarus? There is still an embarrassing kind of romanticism surrounding Castro. I should very much like to have some answers from the Council to these questions."@en1
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