News and updates

Today, 18 March, we mark the sixth anniversary of Cuba's Primavera Negra, the crackdown in which approximately 90 dissidents and critics of Castro's regime were arrested as ‘agents of the American enemy’. One day hearings were held behind closed doors, with the consequence that none of them had the time to put together consistent defenses. They received prison sentences ranging from 14 to 27 years.

Of those arrested, 35 were writers, journalists and librarians, others were political dissidents of parties that have never been legalised in the island. External observers believed that their convictions meant an attempt to suppress Cuba's independent media, which was flourishing at the time. The crackdown prompted many other Cuban journalists to give up their professions or opt for exile.

Some of these prisoners have been conditionally released, on humanitarian grounds, since April 2004. Immediately before Castro's resignation last year, three were freed and allowed to leave for Spain, for reasons which still remain unclear. Nonetheless, 21 other writers, journalists, political dissidents and librarians arrested during the Primavera Negra remain imprisoned today, under appalling conditions and without adequate medical treatment.

The International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) calls once again for:

- the immediate release without any conditions of those unlawfully arrested in March 2003 alongside other independent and dissident journalists, writers and politicians that remain behind Cuban bars in violation of their internationally recognised right of freedom of expression;

- an assurance from the Cuban authorities that all those presently detained are treated humanely for the duration of their detention, by providing them with the necessary medical attention and by granting them full access to their families and lawyers;

- the support to the movement of Damas de Blanco, which is composed by the relatives of these prisioners;

- a peaceful political transition in Cuba that can uphold the instauration of a system based on democracy, human rights, free market economy and the rule of law.