Chairman of the State Council and the Council of Ministers
of the Republic of Cuba, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba Dr Fidel Castro Ruz

Havana

CUBA

14 July 2003

Mr Chairman:

4 April this year a court in Havana sentenced journalist Adolfo Fernandez Sainz to 15 years in prison. The accusations against him are linked solely to his work as a journalist for foreign mass media. Cuban justice believes his work to be of “counter revolutionary nature” and the information he had been distributing is thought to contain “untrue data and judgement”.

We have no doubt that the Cuban Government and Cuba’s state and social institutions could have easily proven Mr. Fernandez wrong if they managed to find truthful and convincing arguments to do so. Because they found none, they chose to use political repression as an argument against Adolfo Fernandez and other dissidents.

However, Mr Chairman, we assure you that the repression against dissidents will not prove your case to the victims of such repression or the Cuban people or the international public opinion. Rather the opposite: opposing the free speech with arrests and imprisonment, you demonstrate your ideological helplessness, your panic fear of democratic reform and prove that you have no intentions whatever to improve the life in your country.

We want to draw you attention to the fact that the endless human rights violations carried out under your leadership will inevitably lead to people in Cuba and other countries calling to answer all those who abusing their power, are depriving the Cuban people of their basic human rights and freedoms.

We call you to contemplate the reputation of your country as well as your own and release immediately the journalist, Russian news agency PRIMA correspondent, Adolfo Fernandez Sainz.

Signatories:

Mr Vladimir BUKOVSKI, former Soviet political prisoner (Great Britain);
Mr Petrus BUWALDA, former Ambassador of the Netherlands to the USSR
(The Nerthelands);
Mr Isa GAMBAR, chairman of Musavat Party (Azerbaijan);
Mr Andre GLUKSMAN, writer (France);
Mr Azgar ISHKILDIN, journalist (Russia), secretary of the Committee;
Mr Mustafa JEMILEV, member of parliament (Ukraine);
Mr Serge KOVALEV, member of parliament (Russia);
Mr Alexander PODRABINEK, editor-in-chief of PRIMA news agency (Russia), coordinator of the Committee;
Mr Zbigniew ROMASZEWSKI, senator (Poland).