In Cuba, The Crime Of Journalism Is Punishable By Persecution And Imprisonment.
I centered my reporting on the failings of the regime, principally on the topic of public health, advised by a team of qualified doctors and personnel. We documented cases such as the death of newborn babies and their mothers, the result of inadequate medical treatment. We reported on the abominable hospital conditions and the shortage of essential medicines and equipment. I can't forget the case of Miguel Antonio, a boy who needed a bone marrow transplant and wasn't given adequate treatment, nourishment, or decent housing. I remember Sessia, a paraplegic girl of 7. I wrote a story called "The prince and the beggar" about her. Both died shortly after I was imprisoned for the third time.
By the onset of 2003, I had already accumulated enough "merits" for the Cuban regime to consider me one of its top enemies nationwide.
Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona (his essay for the Committee to Protect Journalists should be read in full, here) was a journalist for the independent news agency Unión de Periodistas y Escritores de Cuba Independientes in his home province of Pinar del Río. He was sentenced to a 26-year prison sentence for acting "against the independence or the territorial integrity of the state" under Article 91 of the penal code.
Notice the contrast?
By the onset of 2003, I had already accumulated enough "merits" for the Cuban regime to consider me one of its top enemies nationwide.
Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona (his essay for the Committee to Protect Journalists should be read in full, here) was a journalist for the independent news agency Unión de Periodistas y Escritores de Cuba Independientes in his home province of Pinar del Río. He was sentenced to a 26-year prison sentence for acting "against the independence or the territorial integrity of the state" under Article 91 of the penal code.
Notice the contrast?
posted by Terry Glavin at 11:31 AM
6 Comments:
It's going to be hard slogging, convincing the upper-middle-left that Cuba isn't as it says it is.
Jeffrey Goldberg's Fidel interview in The Atlantic has a lot of people convinced that the old Maximum Leader is actually a cuddly sort of guy with the best interests of others at heart.
And consider the contretemps emanating from the Wikileaks dump -- where the U.S. authorities were upset with the Canadians' weak-kneed stance to Cuba's human rights violations. Foreign Affairs Canada -- under left-wing Lawrence Cannon -- preferred to consult with Cuban leaders in private, as opposed to stating in public our supposed opposition to anti-human right policies in that one-party state.
On Friday's night's CTV National News, the pro-Liberal CTV trotted out tired establishment-commentator Craig Oliver to defend the go-slow apporach. Oliver stated that the traditional U.S. policy of favouring human rights in Cuba stemmed from Obama seeking anti-Castro votes in Little Havana (in Miami) and nothing more. In his pro-Cuba tirade, Oliver stated that this was a small matter, and that Canada's policy of playing up to the dictatorship would coninue to have economic spinoffs.
So the standard Toronto-based media -- as exemplified by Craig Oliver's analysis -- truly do like the Castro regime.
Lawrence Cannon, Stephen Harper's foreign minister, is left-wing? I suppose anyone to the left of you earns that epithet; i have to wonder what planet you're on... clearly not this one.
I state that Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon is left wing. I let the facts speak for themselves. On Cuba, he did a Jean Chretien re-run: claiming that he spoke on Cuban human rights abuses "in private" while saying nothing in public. That bit of charade earned our foreign affairs ministry a rebuke from the U.S. state department -- run by Obama. If that is not "left wing", I do not know what left wing is.
Finally, I appreciate Terry's approach to human rights. Lots of good research on this site. I realize he is a social democrat -- but his point of view is drowned by a sea tide of anti-democratic, anti-human rights advocacy from the heavily funded left. Consider Terry's attack against Amnesty International above. AI represents the establishment Left in the world. No criticism of Cuba from these quarters.
RE: I do not know what left wing is.
Finally, a statement I can agree with.
Guys like dmurrell just make shit up. He writes about AI: 'no criticism of Cuba from these quarters.' Of course the AI website is filled with condemnations of the repressive Cuban regime, as well as calls for human rights activists to be released, such as this:
www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/cuba-urged-revoke-repressive-laws-and-release-prisoners-conscience-2010-03-17
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