 December 2005 January 2006
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Sara Burke, Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Editorial material in Peacework is published under a Creative Commons  Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Cuban Journalists Imprisoned From Reporters Without Borders Lamasiel Gutiérrez Romero, a journalist who had been under house arrest in Cuba since August, has been transferred to prison because she continued her journalistic activities in defiance of a court order, the independent Nueva Prensa Cubana agency reported on October 24, 2005. She is the Nueva Prensa Cubana correspondent on the Isle of Youth (100 km south of Havana), where she currently lives. Gutiérrez, who was sentenced on 9 August to seven months of house arrest for "resisting the authorities and civil disobedience," joins the 23 other journalists currently imprisoned in Cuba.
Petitions to call for the freedom of Cuban
journalists are available at www.rsf.org. Cuban "Women in White" Win Human Rights Prize: Government Thwarts Travel From Reporters Without Borders Cuba's Damas de Blanco (Women in White), who demonstrate every Sunday, wearing white, for the freedom of their imprisoned relatives and for freedom of the press, were one of three groups awarded the Sakharov Human Rights Prize by the European Parliament on December 12, 2005. This year's other two recipients are Reporters Without Borders and the Nigerian anti-stoning activist, Hauwa Ibrahim. The Cuban government refused to allow the Women in White to leave the country to receive their award. Reporters Without Borders called on Cuba to stop preventing their co-awardees from traveling, noting that, "As a member of the United Nations, Cuba is required to respect the article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that says everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country." For more information on Women in White, please see http://pscuba.org/articulos/testim.htm Anti-War Advocates Oppose Repression in Cuba Excerpts from an open letter from the Campaign for Peace and Democracy, released in 2003. Signers included Ariel Dorfman, Barbara Ehrenreich, Naomi Klein, Grace Paley, Cornel West, and Howard Zinn. CPD, 2790 Broadway, #12, NY, NY 10025 As anti-war, social justice, and human rights advocates, we condemned the brutal Saddam Hussein regime, and we oppose the United States occupation of Iraq. We support civil liberties and democratic rights everywhere, regardless of the country's economic, political, or social system. We believe it is imperative to be consistent in opposing repression wherever it takes place, whether in Iraq or Saudi Arabia, Israel or Cuba, Turkey or the US. Democratic change in Cuba needs to be achieved by the Cuban people themselves. The Cuban government's violations of democratic rights do not justify sanctions or any other form of intervention by the US in Cuba. And we recall, too, the long, criminal record of US interventions in Latin America. This record has included six decades of exploitation and imperial control of Cuba, followed by an attempted invasion and a campaign of international terrorism and economic warfare. We reaffirm our support for the right of self-determination in Cuba and our strong opposition to the US policy of economic sanctions that has brought such suffering to the Cuban people. At the same time, we support democracy in Cuba. The imprisonment of people for attempting to exercise their rights of free expression is outrageous and unacceptable. We call on the Castro government to release all political prisoners and let the Cuban people speak, write, and organize freely. 
Previous Article Next Article
|
|
|