Letter from Arroyo
The blog post Carta del Preso politico Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona desde prison Kilo 5 1/2, on the website Vueltabajo por Cuba Noticiero, presents a letter from political prisoner Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona. Arroyo wrote the letter in Spanish on 14th November 2009, from Kilo 5½ Prison, in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, where he is serving a 26 year sentence. Arroyo went on hunger strike (Political Prisoner on Hunger Strike) in May 2009 to protest his inhumane treatment in the prison. Amnesty International declares Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona as a prisoner of conscience. He is one of many political prisoners in Cuba, unjustly sentenced to long prison terms by the Castro regime.
(The image shown here is a low resolution thumbnail. Please refer to the linked site for original image of letter.)
Why is your favourite website not available? Is your blog visible overseas? Use Herdict Web at Herdict.org and you can help answer these questions. Herdict Web is an Internet service that detects signs of censorship or disruption. Read “Herdict—Using the Crowd to Fight Censorship” to learn more. Simply browse Herdict Web and view the reports for your web sites or countries of Interest. Run some of the tests yourself, and help build up a picture of the health of the Internet. You can view the global picture as a Google map, with status reports overlaid on the location of origin. That is a valuable service for this stormy season of Internet interruptions. Several countries are enforcing severe Internet censorship, and some websites have been disrupted by botnets. Be security concious when using your own PC, so that it does not become part of a malicious botnet. Botnets are a source of spam, and some are programmed to send invalid traffic. Due to the huge numbers of PCs in a botnet, this can swamp the targetted web site. Herdict is reviewed at toolness.com and futureoftheinternet.org. Herdict is provided by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. The OpenNet Initiative (ONI), which tracks Internet censorship around the globe, is an international collaboration of the Berkman Center and other leading academic institutions.
An excerpt from Burn This Book by PEN writers is presented in LiteratureBlog.net. The excerpt, entitled “Peril”, was written by Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison. The peril referred to is that of writers being unable to pursue their work, due to persecution and censorship by authoritarian regimes. The essay explains why we need writers and why they need to be protected. The PEN American Center is an association of U.S. writers advancing literature and defending free expression. International PEN is a related association for writers of all cultures.
According to various testimonies in June, 2009, the human rights situation in Cuba continues to deteriorate. The Committee to Protect Journalists urged European leaders to ensure that Cuba releases imprisoned journalists and permits freedom of expression and information. The journalists live in inhumane life-threatening conditions, and no international humanitarian organizations have been permitted to visit. Recent prisoners include Albert Santiago Du Bouchet Hernández, director of the news agency Habana Press. In “Alarming Statistics of Human Rights Violations in First Half of 2009“, democracy activists in Cuba report “over 500 political arrests, at least 26 trials and prison sentences of peaceful opposition activists and a high prison mortality rate”. The daughter of one prisoner, Yenysel Díaz Sánchez, pleas for his release from the Castro gulag. Former prisoner of conscience José Gabriel Ramón Castillo testified before the UN Human Rights Council, appealing for justice for the thousands of Cubans who have been repressed and tortured.
This blog post is based on recent online sources as indicated by the hyperlinks.
This blog Thinking Upstream, about ideas and human rights, is based on online news of some of the bloggers and journalists who remain unjustly imprisoned in several countries. As one blogger among many, I hope to draw attention to the people mentioned, urging that we each seek peaceful ways to secure their freedom. They have been hurt by authoritarianism and its cruel repression, and by those who execute that repression or gain from it. I have no experience of the countries mentioned, but am convinced of the accuracy of the news, by the variety of reputable publications, to which I refer in the hyper-links of my posts. I blog about human rights because: all freedoms and rights are fragile, and at risk of being lost, if we are even a little careless. Thinking Upstream is now a PDF file on Scribd.com for easy offline reading, even in places where Friendster is blocked. I used Google Translate to machine-translate it into various languages, also in PDF format on Scribd.com.Thinking Upstream is at: http://cmcallister.blog.friendster.com/. Your comments are welcome.
Journalist Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, one of 22 independent journalists imprisoned in Cuba, is on hunger strike, according to “Cuban journalist in second week of hunger strike.” María Salazar Ferro reports that Rolando went on hunger strike on 15th May 2009 to protest: lack of medical attention, bad sanitary conditions in his cell, cruel treatment, and the fact that he has not been allowed to practice religion. Rolando’s photo is from Imprisoned Journalists in Cuba, which reports that he has been imprisoned in Cuba since 18th March 2003, and is serving a 26 year sentence. Ironically, Cuba was home to Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), one of the world’s best known journalists, and the Hemingway Museum on Cuba is a popular tourist attraction. “Latin America’s Brave New World:Cuba gets a vote of confidence from the OAS” criticises the recent addition of Cuba to the OAS (Organization of American States). Inclusion of a repressive Marxist-Leninist state into the OAS stretches the meaning of the word “democracy”. Organisations which report on threats to journalists and press freedom include the RSF and The World Association of Newspapers, which organises a World Press Freedom Day initiative to draw attention to the role of independent news and information in society, and how it is under attack. In this 11 June 2009 post, “Intervencion en la 11° Sesion del Consejo de los Derechos Humanos“, José Gabriel Ramón Castillo appeals to the UN Human Rights Council for the hundreds of known political prisoners suffering in Cuba.
(This blog “Thinking Upstream” is based on various online news articles and photos that draw attention to some of the bloggers and journalists who remain unjustly imprisoned in several countries.)
Another independent journalist, Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet has been imprisoned in Cuba. “Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 5/17/09“, as reported in the blog Uncommon Sense. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison for “disrespect,” one of the Orwellian catch-all “crimes” the dictatorship uses to try to silence and punish those who oppose it, according to this RSF article. The organisation English PEN, supporting writers around the world, protests his arrest, and reports that he was denied a fair trial and access to a lawyer.
Active blogger Yoani Sánchez (photo) expresses her joy about the expanding blogosphere in Havana, Cuba. In her blogpost “Arco iris en la blogósfera” (Rainbow in the blogosphere), she reports on the rapid growth of blogging since she started her blog Generation Y in April 2007. In addition to being an inspiration to new bloggers, she enjoys meeting them, and giving technical advice, such as: How to use Wordpress, and how to maintain a regular online presence, where Internet connections are hard to obtain.
In her blog post “Young Pro-Democracy Advocate Edgar Lopez Trapped in Cuba”, Yoani petitions for Edgar Lopez to be permitted to travel to join his family in the USA. Foreign travel is one of the many activities that are restricted in Cuba. The country is also tightening the net on bloggers: “Cuban bloggers, an endangered species? ”. Only official government websites are permitted to register on the “.cu” Cuban domain. Hotels are among the few places where it is possible to get Internet access in Cuba, but access cards are only provided to foreign tourists. Yoani is also under attack from an official state journalist who seems to be severely out of touch with how the Internet works.
The “Petition to help Edgar Lopez” explains that Edgar López has been denied a travel visa because he is a member of a political group that does not support Cuba’s communist party.
Yoani Sánchez is listed as Hero and Pioneer in the Time 2008 Top 100.
that is the question asked by Josephine on the Philosophy discussion group on Friendster.com. My contribution to the online discussion is: Your question requires an answer more subtle than Yes - Possible or No – Impossible. It is not simply a philosophical question, as it has been posed many times in the realms of religion, science, law and politics. There are as many ideals of Equality as there are branches of Philosophy, and these can be applied according to the situation. A Postmodern approach (Foucault) may help in analysing Equality within culture, and an Existentialist approach (Sartre) might be more useful in a one-on-one meeting. Rousseau in his 1762 Social Contract recognises the natural inequalities that you mention and frames his response in that context. The pragmatist view (Richard Rorty) would favour action towards progress rather than unproductive discussion. Your question has encouraged me to do some further reading. I suggest Equality (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Rather than just talking about equality in an abstract sense, I’ll suggest one of the many websites documenting struggles for equality: www.meydaan.org, in this case equality for women in Iran. A 2007 Spiegel article describes how difficult this struggle is: Tehran Cracks Down on Feminist Movement. For a more philosophical discussion, I refer you to the book Philosophy and Social Hope by American philosopher Richard Rorty (1931 - 2007). How a person should best practice equality is different for each situation. It is refreshing to observe that those struggles for equality persist and succeed even when they are oppressed.
The 2008 storm Cyclone Nargis caused devastation in the Irrawaddy Delta. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) marked the one year anniversary of the disaster by releasing a report: AAPP_Cyclone_Nargis_Anniversary_Report.pdf. The report includes details of some of the twenty one cyclone relief volunteers who are still in prison. Those imprisoned were: fund raising, providing relief supplies, burying the victims and, as journalists, reporting from the disaster zone. Some of the volunteers had been involved with the Saffron Revolution and had come out of hiding to help with the relief efforts. The military government’s indifferent attitude to the 2008 disaster, and its frustration of relief efforts was extensively reported in: BURMA: Cyclone Nargis Exposes Junta’s Anti-People Attitude and in newspapers around the world. Residents of the delta still face a critical shortage of drinking water because of the salt water surge from the cyclone. Aid groups (French INGO) that assist in distributing drinking water are complaining about red tape, and appealing for better cooperation from authorities.
