Raúl Rivero Castañeda Poet, Journalist, and Dissident 1945 - 2021

"In this country, the real blockade, the one that affects the daily life of the people, is the internal governing system. It is the noose that ensures that Cuba remains immobilized and poor." - Raúl Rivero, 2002

 

Raúl Rivero Castañeda with his wife Blanca Reyes

 

Raúl Rivero Castañeda died today in Miami, Florida. He was 75 years old. Raúl Rivero was a poet, a journalist, and dissident. In 1995 he established the independent news agency CubaPress, and by 2004 was forcibly exiled to Spain. Amnesty International described how in 1997 the secret police told him to leave Cuba.

Raúl Rivero Castañeda was detained  for  several  hours  on  July 28, 1997 and told that the authorities intended to destroy Cuba Press.  He was re-arrested on August, 12, 1997 by State Security and was taken to what appears to have been the same house Olance Nogueras was taken to. He was held there until August 15, 2021 and, although treated respectfully, was repeatedly urged to leave the country."

Raúl Rivero refused to leave, and six years later in 2003 was jailed, and sentenced to 20 years in prison during the Black Cuban Spring. The Chicago Tribune on November 9, 2004 reported on his trial and imprisonment.

The trial of Raúl Rivero Castañeda began on March 20, 2003, and ended 10 days later, when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The government-appointed defense attorney didn't call any witnesses. A feeble appeal was quashed immediately. Rivero, 59, now sits in a stiflingly small cell with a hole in the floor for a makeshift toilet. Rivero's crime was that he had published, at his own expense, three issues of a small magazine dealing with social issues, culture and art. It was an exceedingly modest effort; the quality of the printing was terrible. By the time the third issue appeared, though, Rivero was in prison. 

Seven years later, what the secret police had suggested the Cuban writer do voluntarily in 1997, was done by force. The offer made in December 2004 was serve a twenty year prison sentence in Cuba or accept forced exile.  Raúl Rivero Castañeda arrived in Spain in December 2004, and he would eventually end up exiled in Miami. 

 

Below is an essay from 2002 that spoke truths that the Castro regime wanted to silence. 

 

Requiescat in pace

Raúl Rivero Castañeda: November 23, 1945 - November 6, 2021

The Chicago Tribune, May 16, 2002

The Internal Blockade in Cuba

May 16, 2002 

 

By Raúl Rivero Castañeda

HAVANA: A man riding the Chinese-made Forever brand bicycle under the Caribbean sun after eating a single slice of bread, washed down with very bad coffee, finds it difficult to ponder America's trade embargo against Cuba. Such a man has lunch on his mind-his and his family's. For him, abstract thought is a luxury that requires time, information, and a reason to reflect on a subject that, at first sight, appears to be from another galaxy. The truth is that ordinary Cubans are more oppressed by a personal embargo, one that has transformed them into blindfolded and muzzled pawns. 

The debate over the American embargo pales in comparison - removed to a far corner of the mind - to the obstructive domestic situation that envelops them. In this country, the real blockade, the one that affects the daily life of the people, is the internal governing system. It is the noose that ensures that Cuba remains immobilized and poor. 

The old standoff between the two nations is beside the point to ordinary people; they desire a closer relationship with the US, where many of their families and friends live. However, no political process has created a smooth path toward such an ending. Thus, the stalemate between the two nations really concerns only Cubans who have time to contemplate lofty political questions. 

These individuals read newspapers fabricated in the offices of the Communist Party; view only two television channels, both cut from the same cloth; and listen to radios that play the same worn-out speeches. Cuba provides no free flow of information and its citizens receive and read only pure propaganda. While the public is suspicious of government proclamations, it has no means to be heard. Hence, its silence appears to sanction the situation. 

In reality, Cubans want to remove the inequalities that exist between the people and their leaders before they deal with the problems between their country and the US. Ordinary citizens want to own a modest business, have access to a free press, organize political parties, re-make society, and liberate prisoners.

The authorities like to paint themselves as the victims of a powerful giant set on smothering a nation and its united people, but such a victim's face cannot be found when you look closely. The nation is not a united citizenry, but rather a mediocre country created through the universal gagging of its people. One can systematically catalog the ways that the authorities mistreat many of its people as terribly as they claim that Cuba's enemies treat her. 

These officials should take the money spent trying to convince other nations about the generous nature of Cuba's public health and education systems and apply it to the needs of Cuba's people. In fact, medical services are becoming more and more precarious and the educational system has not advanced beyond a common system of political indoctrination. Indeed, parents cannot really influence how schools shape their children. Whenever the government does address basic public welfare issues, its efforts merely produce dependent individuals who submit to the will of a self-selected group of leaders who are "elected" from time-to-time by fake elections.  

The leaders' commitment to the sovereignty of the masses thus rings false. Talk about the Cubans' free will is in reality a capricious and criminal act against the people. In recent weeks, thirty-six human rights activists, members of the alternative press, and representatives of the emerging civil rights movement have been imprisoned and may be tried. 

We can all agree that human beings are not duty-bound to live according to one master or philosophy; that individuals must live freely, enjoying the right to a bountiful and joyful existence among family and friends. But in Cuba one lives in the midst of a propaganda machine that infiltrates life on a daily basis; that emphasizes a climate of popular cheerfulness; that portrays the joy of a neutered horse, with its ability to befuddle the innocent, inspire the ignorant, and comfort the frustrated. 

Cubans are in the end consigned to hold fast to rigid and impossible schemes. As a result, hundreds of thousands of young adults are embarked on a future whose path is strewn with risky symbols and immense challenges. Sensing that the door has been slammed shut against their country's future, they work diligently merely for their individual good.

Remembering Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Greatest Russian of the 20th Century

"The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born a 102 years ago yesterday. Below is an interesting discussion on a just released book and Chronicles Magazine has an excellent overview of the Russian dissident's life titled "Remembering Solzhenitsyn." 

The Woodrow Wilson Center:

"In Book 2 of Between Two Millstones, just released by the University of Notre Dame Press, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn details his final years of exile in America from 1978 until his return to post-Communist Russia in 1994. During this time, while completing his masterwork The Red Wheel, Solzhenitsyn was both confronted by the propaganda machine of the Soviet state and the commercial mainstream media in the West. In this book talk, Ignat Solzhenitsyn and Daniel J. Mahoney will discuss Solzhenitsyn’s fight against the communist regime while defending the honor of Russia’s historic past. They will also consider how he watched as Russia came out from under the rubble of the Soviet system into a deeply flawed transition."

Requiem for Reinaldo Arenas: Died 29 years ago today

“The difference between the communist and capitalist systems is that, although both give you a kick in the ass, in the communist system you have to applaud, while in the capitalist system you can scream.” - Reinaldo Arenas, 1980

On December 7, 1990 Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas killed himself in New York City, after battling AIDS for several years. He was an important critic of the Castro regime, and those intellectuals who supported it. As a Gay man he also suffered discrimination because of the communist dictatorship's hostility to homosexuals.



Reinaldo left behind an autobiography, Before Night Falls which proved a powerful denunciation of Fidel Castro’s regime. He also left behind a suicide letter:

"Due to my delicate state of health and to the terrible depression that causes me not to be able to continue writing and struggling for the freedom of Cuba, I am ending my life ... I want to encourage the Cuban people abroad as well as on the Island to continue fighting for freedom. ... Cuba will be free. I already am.

This autobiography was adapted into a film by Julian Schnabel in 2000 with Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp and Sean Penn with the same title.
 

Cuban dissident beaten to death by Castro's political police died six years ago today

The hope of impunity is the greatest inducement to do wrong. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia died three days after beating by political police

 
Six years ago the headlines circled the world in English and in Spanish covered by Reuters, the BBC, CNN, AFP, AP, EFE that a Cuban dissident and former political prisoner, Juan Wilfredo Soto (age 46) had been beaten and arrested by Cuban regime police on Thursday, May 5, 2011 while protesting the dictatorship and died early on Sunday May 8, 2011. The beating had been so bad that he required hospitalization. He was buried Sunday, on Mother's Day.

There are others but the regime has been often successful in intimidating family members and destroying the evidence of their crimes. "This act of police violence is not an isolated case. Each day in Cuba those in uniform respect less the citizens," said Yoani Sanchez over Twitter on the day of the burial.

According to dissidents who attended and media accounts more than 80 attended Juan Wilfredo Soto's funeral despite a heavy police presence and state security operation that blocked some activists from attending. The government agents responsible for this man's extra-judicial death must be held accountable if not by national laws then by international law.  At the funeral a Cuban pastor spoke about the life of the Cuban activist and the circumstances surrounding his death.


Juan Wilfredo Soto left behind two children and their mom. He was a member of the Opposition Central Coalition and was known as "The Student." He was a former political prisoner who had served 12 years in prison. His mother, who suffers from a bad hip, buried her son on Mother's Day. Pictures of Juan Wilfredo Soto's family members provided by Yoani Sanchez through twitter.

Children of Juan Wilfredo Soto mourn their dad

 Six years have passed and justice has not been done in this case. Nevertheless we must remember, and with this exercise of memory continue to demand justice for Juan Wilfredo and his loved ones.

Castro regime's massive fail: It can't even pretend to have free speech

Test results are coming in for #YoTambienExijo performance art piece and Castro regime's performance is a massive fail for free speech in Cuba.

Tale of Two Cities: Freedom Tower (Miami) & Revolutionary Plaza (Havana)

The totalitarian apparatus of the Castro regime on occasion reveals more than it would like. The past four days may have been such an example. Dissidents who were thought to want to take part in an artistic happening where participants would freely speak for one minute were either effectively placed under house arrest or picked up and arbitrarily detained. According to the Yo Tambien Exijo twitter account Tania was last seen by her sister around 4:22pm on December 29, 2014. On December 30 over Yoani Sanchez's twitter account news arrived at around 10:48pm that her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, had returned home and in the publication 14 y Medio he was quoted saying that he saw Tania Bruguera dressed in "a prisoner's grey uniform."

With Sunday's post announcing that Tania Bruguera, a daughter of the nomenklatura, who is also an internationally recognized performance artist, was going to conduct an artistic happening in the Plaza of the Revolution. Interviewed by Reuters Ms. Bruguera was crystal clear about how she views herself: "I'm not doing this as a dissident, I'm doing it as a normal person," ... "I'm not a counter-revolutionary, like they say. I'm from a revolutionary family. ... I'm going to continue the project."

Age old strategy: divide and conquer
Nevertheless, voices emerged through social media questioning her motives. State security knows how to play the game of manipulation sowing distrust and division within movements but a nonviolent strategic vision can prevent and minimize it by focusing on what is important.

Castro regime demonstrates its profound weakness
For example, December 30th demonstrated that the Castro regime did not want to permit the simulacrum of an exercise in free speech in an open space. The dictatorship could have set up a militarized cordon busing in state security agents and militias to take over the square while at the same time rounding up or surrounding the home of dissidents so that they could not attend the event. This would have left the artist to conduct her free speech happening with only regime agents. The New York Times and Associated Press would report on the "spontaneous support" for the Castro regime.

This would have been a less damaging international public relations option but the dictatorship did not exercise it and this leads to the question: Why not? The answer is that it did not because it apparently does not trust elements within its own state security and militia. If just one state security agent or militia member takes to the stage and breaks ranks that could begin a chain reaction that could spell the end of the regime. In Eastern Europe it was shown that if an autonomous space is carved out in the public sphere, freed from totalitarian control, it could subvert the entire system.

Graphic by Rolando Pulido

Instead they grabbed up Tania Bruguera the day before the event (December 29th) holding her incommunicado and released her on December 31st only to grab her up again a short time later when she tried to organize the performance art piece at another location. Official Cuban television on Cuba Hoy showed a normal and tranquil plaza without mentioning the detentions of the artist or others that wanted to hold the event there. The latest news is that she was detained a third time while trying to ascertain the plight of others detained because of the event she had planned.

Fortunately, principled and strategic nonviolence offer insights on how to operate in such a difficult and complicated environment. Here are four principles that I hold:

I.  What is not negotiable
There are things that within a nonviolent context can never be surrendered or denied others such as dignity and things that must never accepted such as humiliation or attempting to humiliate others. Respecting all parties and how they wish to identify or not identify themselves while accurately describing their actions is legitimate.

II. Not forgetting those unfairly imprisoned or extrajudicially executed
Another general principle should be that when one has been detained or disappeared that the rights of that person be respected and that they be immediately freed. Over the past week it is known that the following Cuban artists, journalists and activists were detained by State Security:

1. Tania Bruguera 2. Antonio G Rodiles 3. Ailer Gonzalez 4. Claudio Fuentes 5. Boris González Arenas 6. Luis Trápaga 7. Camilo Ernesto Olivera 8. Andrés Pérez Suárez 9. Carlos Manuel Hernández Jiménez 10. Vicente Coll Campagnioli 11. Joisis García 12. Nelson Rodríguez. 13. Agustín López Canino 14. Ernesto Santana 15. Delio Rodríguez Díaz 16. Pablo Pascual Méndez Piña 17. Waldo Fernández Cuenca 18. Raúl Borges, 19. Yaneisi Herrera Cabrales 20. Ariovel Castillo Villalba 21. Carlos Manuel Hernández 22. Miguel Daniel Borroto 23. Raisel Rodríguez Rivero  24. Lázaro Montesino Hernández. 25. Oscar Casanella Saint Blancard 26. Dayron Moisés Torres 27. Danilo Maldonado Machado, el Sexto.

This is a partial list of the past week's detentions provided by Estado de SATS and one should not forget that there was already another preexisting and partial list of over a 100 Cuban political prisoners currently behind bars. At present Amnesty International only recognizes five Cuban prisoners of conscience: Emilio Planas Robert, Iván Fernández Depestre, Alexeis Vargas Martín, Vianco Vargas Martín and Django Vargas Martín. There are others. It is shocking that Yosvani Melchor's case does not get more attention. A young man imprisoned to blackmail his poor mother into either leaving the Christian Liberation Movement or becoming a government informant. You also don't hear much in the mainstream media about the Cuban rapper sentenced to six years in prison in October 2014 for his critical songs. His name is Angel Yunier Remón Arzuaga, and he goes by the stage name "el Critico del Arte" (the 'Art Critic').

At the same time one must remember and continue to demand justice for those murdered by the regime such as the four members of Brothers to the Rescue, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero just to name two well known cases.

III. A mass based grassroots and participatory opposition
 Furthermore that the opposition should not be limited to a small elite but open to the grassroots and be participatory and inclusive within an operational framework. Once again this type of approach works best in a nonviolent context.

IV.  'As the means so the end'
 At the same time it is important to try and discern what are the most effective strategies to achieve real and lasting change in Cuba versus those strategies that may unknowingly facilitate a fraudulent change that maintains the old regime in power. In the New Testament their is a passage that states: by their fruits you shall know them. The purpose of this approach is to seek out through a public and transparent conversation the best strategy to achieve change in an open and democratic manner. This is an anti-Machiavellian approach that Mohandas Gandhi described as follows: "They say, 'means are, after all, means'. I would say, 'means are, after all, everything'. As the means so the end..."

A tale of two cities
In Miami at the Freedom Tower there was a successful gathering in solidarity with Tania Bruguera and the #YoTambienExigo that reproduced what had been attempted in Havana with Cubans speaking for one minute about their desires for a free Cuba.  It provided a marked contrast with the repression in Havana. If Cuba is to have a democratic future and not just another round of authoritarian or continuing totalitarian dictatorship then the freedom of speech of all political parties must be respected even those one violently disagrees with. The rules set out by Ms. Bruguera and followed to the letter in Miami are found in the graphic below in Spanish states: "#ITooDemand - a microphone open to all - One Minute of Time - Don't Interrupt - Speak in a personal capacity - No Bad Words or Violence 12.30.2014 3:00PM We'll See Each Other in The Plaza"

Martha Frayde Barraqué: Founder Cuban Committee for Human Rights

 I remember but I don't hate. - Dr. Martha Frayde Barraqué

“I wanted to do something big for my country,” ... “Castro fooled us all, starting with me. The visionaries (who foresaw Castro’s dictatorship) from the start were a minority.” - Dr. Martha Frayde Barraqué, El Nuevo Herald interview (2008)

Wifredo Lam and Martha Frayde with others in Mexico in 1957. From the Martha Frayde Barraqué Papers.

Martha Frayde was a doctor, diplomat, dissident, human rights defender, exile and through it all, she remained a Cuban who never forgot her homeland.



She fought nonviolently against dictatorship in Cuba. First against Fulgencio Batista and later against Fidel Castro. Together with Ricardo Bofill she was one of the founders of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in 1976. Bofill in an August 2008 interview described how he, Martha and Eddy Lopez in Martha Frayde's home signed the founding document establishing the Cuban Committee for Human Rights. In the 1984 documentary Improper Conduct she spoke about her experiences in prison.

Martha Frayde was Cuba's representative to UNESCO in Paris until 1965 when she returned to Cuba and began to dissent from the Castro regime's slide into totalitarianism.

She was jailed in 1976 and sentenced to 29 years in prison for her criticism of the Castro dictatorship but released into exile in 1979 following a campaign of international solidarity. Intellectuals and writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir, Claude Roy, Phillippe Sollers, José Angel Valente, José María Castellet, Juan Goytisolo, Fernando Claudín, José Luis Aranguren, Joaquín Ruiz Jiménez, Rossana Rossanda, Octavio Paz, Norman Mailer, Barbara Probst Solomon, William Styron, Rose Styron penned an open letter to The New York Review of Books which in part stated:

The distinguished fifty-eight-year-old Cuban gynecologist, Doctor Martha Frayde, has been sentenced by the Cuban government, during this past year, to a twenty-nine-year prison sentence for espionage. This is tragic. Doctor Frayde has had a distinguished past—as a humanitarian, as a doctor, and as a revolutionary idealist. Her medical career speaks for itself. After graduating from the University of Havana Medical School in 1946, she was awarded a fellowship to McGill Medical School in Montreal. She then became assistant medical director in the Havana hospital, Calixto García. Doctor Frayde has been on the staff of the Saint Antoine hospital in Paris, the Saint Pierre hospital in Brussels, and in 1952 she was elected a member of the American Society of Endocrinology in Miami. In 1959, after the Cuban revolution, Doctor Frayde was appointed director of the National Hospital of Havana.

Doctor Frayde was an early supporter of Fidel Castro; they met during the Batista regime. Both Fidel Castro and Doctor Frayde were members of the same left-wing opposition group. Due to her militancy against the Batista regime, Doctor Frayde was arrested by the Batista police in 1957. She escaped prison by fleeing to Mexico where she lived in self-exile until the fall of the Batista regime. After the revolution Doctor Frayde became vice-president for Chinese-Cuban Solidarity and in 1959 she accompanied Fidel Castro on his visit to the United States and Canada. During this period, as president of the Cuban Peace Movement, she decorated Fidel Castro with the order of Lenin. From 1963 to 1964, Doctor Frayde taught gynecology in the Broca Hospital in Paris—during this period she was also a Cuban delegate to UNESCO. After her return to Cuba in 1964, Doctor Frayde voiced her alarm to Fidel Castro concerning his overly close ties to the Soviet Union. By 1965 Doctor Frayde was relieved of all her official posts and she went into private practice. In 1968 permission for Doctor Frayde to leave Cuba to teach at the University of Madrid Medical School was abruptly rescinded four days before her departure. Permission to leave the country was withheld from her “on grounds of national security.” In 1976 Doctor Frayde was placed under house arrest—later her personal possessions and her medical library were confiscated by the government and destroyed. Doctor Frayde was sent to a women’s prison for common criminals—Nuevo Amanecer.

She passed away yesterday at age 93 in Madrid, Spain. In 1989 she founded the Spanish section of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and remained an active member until the end of her life.

Documentary on Chinese Artist and Dissident Returns to Miami

"To live your life in fear is worse than losing your freedom." - Ai Weiwei

Powerful documentary on Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei returns to screens in South Florida this weekend in Miami at the Cosford Cinema and on Miami Beach at the Cinematheque.

If you didn't see the film at the Miami International Film Festival back in March 2012 then be sure not to miss it now. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is a 2012 documentary that follows and gains complete access to Ai Weiwei.

The documentary demonstrates the power of nonviolent action when applied creatively. Protesting the Beijing Olympics, documenting the number of school children killed in the May 12, 2008 Sichuan Quake, and pursuing justice after he was physically assaulted by a Chinese police officer applying creative and artistic sensibilities in an effective manner combined with great courage.

                       AI WEIWEI photographing himself at a Munich hospital in September 2009, with a bag containing fluid that was surgically removed from his skull. Courtesy the artist and Haus der Kunst, Munich.

Ai Weiwei has been beaten, detained, disappeared for 81 days and prosecuted for his outspokenness despite being one of the better known Chinese artists in the world.  He was so badly beaten that he required fluid to be surgically removed from his skull.

Despite this he continues to speak out and make China his home.  He has also received powerful demonstrations of solidarity from the Chinese populace which are seen in the documentary.

He is the son of a prominent Chinese poet who was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and comes from the ranks of China's elite.



The official website of this documentary offers the following description of its main subject and the film:

Ai Weiwei is China's most famous international artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. Against a backdrop of strict censorship and an unresponsive legal system, Ai expresses himself and organizes people through art and social media. In response, Chinese authorities have shut down his blog, beat him up, bulldozed his newly built studio, and held him in secret detention.

AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY is the inside story of a dissident for the digital age who inspires global audiences and blurs the boundaries of art and politics. First-time director Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to Ai while working as a journalist in China. Her detailed portrait provides a nuanced exploration of contemporary China and one of its most compelling public figures.

The Human Rights Foundation Inaugurates The Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent

"Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance." - Václav Havel

Inaugural Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent Awarded to Ai Weiwei, Manal al-Sharif, and Aung San Suu Kyi

The inaugural Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent was awarded to Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Saudi women’s rights advocate Manal al-Sharif, and Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The three laureates were honored at the Havel Prize ceremony at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Oslo, Norway on May 9.

An initiative of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF), the Havel Prize for Creative Dissent was founded with the support of Dagmar Havlová, Václav Havel’s widow.

“This is a magnificent way to honor the memory of Václav Havel—by recognizing those who, with bravery and ingenuity, unmask the lie of dictatorship by living in truth,” said Havlová, a member of the prize committee.

Ai Weiwei, China’s most famous artist, has become one of the Chinese government’s most prominent and innovative critics. Unwilling to accept a political system that violates human rights, he continues to express himself across numerous media—despite being detained, fined, harassed, and constantly under surveillance.


Manal al-Sharif at Oslo Freedom Forum 2012

Manal al-Sharif, a Saudi mother and computer-security professional, last year posted a YouTube video of herself defying her country’s draconian ban on women driving. She was arrested and, after a groundswell of protest, released. Her ongoing advocacy has breathed life into a new movement for individual rights.

Aung San Suu Kyi, one of Václav Havel's heroes, has over three decades built a unique international profile to help lead the fight for democracy in Burma. Recently released from house arrest and allowed to campaign, she was elected to Burma's parliament and is leading a nationwide push against the dictatorship.

These three Havel Prize laureates received an artist’s representation of the “Goddess of Democracy,” the iconic statue erected by Chinese student leaders during the Tiananmen Square protests of June, 1989. Each sculpture embodies the spirit and literal reality of creative dissent at its finest, representing the struggle of truth and beauty against brute power. The Havel Prize laureates also shared a prize of 350,000 Norwegian Kroner.

The Havel Prize is funded jointly by grants from the Brin Wojcicki Foundation and the Thiel Foundation. The Brin Wojcicki Foundation was established by Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, and his wife Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe, a leading personal genetics company. The Thiel Foundation, established and funded by Peter Thiel, defends and promotes freedom in all its dimensions: political, personal, and economic.

The Havel Prize ceremony was live-streamed at www.oslofreedomforum.com on Wednesday, May 9. The event took place at Oslo’s Christiania Theater and registration was open to the public.

For inquiries, please contact secretariat@havelprize.org

World-Renowned Tiananmen Square Dissident to Address Geneva Rights Summit Today

Source: Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy (http://www.genevasummit.org)

Date: 14 March 2011

Yang Jianli, the world-renowned Chinese dissident and survivor of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, will join other former prisoners of conscience tomorrow for the third annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. Dr. Yang, who served a five-year jail term in China for his social activism, will speak about the situation of jailed writer Liu Xiaobo, whom he represented at the Oslo Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December.

The Geneva Summit is organized by a cross-regional coalition of 20 NGOs, including UN Watch, Freedom House and Ibuka, with the aim of providing a voice for the voiceless and advocating action on urgent human rights situations. The conference will feature victim testimonies from renowned human rights defenders, dissidents and experts, and produce draft resolutions for the UN Human Rights Council to adopt. For more on the conference, speakers and program, click here.

The Chinese government has been criticized by human rights groups and the U.S. State Department for gross and systematic violations of basic rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion, and for oppressing minority groups.

Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year for “inciting subversion of state power.” His receipt of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize turned a global spotlight on the human rights situation in China, which is currently witnessing a brutal crackdown by authorities fearful of the freedom revolutions that have spread in the Middle East.

With Liu in jail, and his wife and supporters placed under house arrest by the Chinese government, Yang Jianli, as a friend of the couple and fellow activist living in exile in the U.S., was appointed by Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, to be the peace award winner's representative and spokesman at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Yang played a key role in preparations for the ceremony, organizing a delegation of exiled dissidents to be present and publishing an open letter imploring the Chinese government to let Liu Xia come to Oslo to accept her husband’s award.

Like Liu, Yang was a participant in the Tiananmen democracy movement in 1989, and considers the June 4 crackdown to be a turning point in his life. "I saw tanks rolling over students," he says. "I felt China had no choice but to change." While in the United States doing pro-democracy work, his passport expired and the Chinese government refused to issue him a new one. When he tried to return to China in 2002 to observe labor unrest he was arrested and jailed for five years. He now lives in exile in the U.S., where he heads the Foundation for China in the 21st Century, which advocates political transition and supports rights activities on the mainland.

Despite his personal experiences, Yang remains hopeful about the future of democracy in China. "I am always optimistic," he says. "On the surface you can only see the hardening of China's attitude, but the real change is in people's hearts. You can feel the change already in China." At the Geneva Summit tomorrow he will offer his take on the human rights situation in China in the aftermath of Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Prize.

Other participants in the panel include:

• Dechem Pemba, a UK-born Tibetan and editor of the website High Peaks Pure Earth, on which Tibetan blogs written in Tibetan and Chinese are translated into English.
• Bahtiyar Ömer, a Uyghur human rights activist whose wife, Gulmire Imin, received life in prison for her role as an “illegal organizer” during the 2009 demonstrations.
• Ti-Anna Wang, the daughter of Bingzhang Wang, a Chinese dissident serving a life sentence in solitary confinement, and one of the founding members of the overseas Chinese Democracy Movement.

Admission to tomorrow’s Geneva Summit is free, and the public and media are invited to attend. For accreditation, program and schedule information, please visit http://www.genevasummit.org.

Global Civil Society Coalition: Collectif Urgence Darfour; Darfur Peace and Development Center; Directorio Democratico Cubano; Freedom House; Freedom Now; Human Rights Without Frontiers Int’l; IBUKA; Ingénieurs du monde; Initiatives for China; Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children; International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY); Ligue International Contre le Racisme; LINK; Respect Institut; Stop Child Executions; Tibetan Women's Association; Ticino Tibet; Uighur American Congress; UN Watch; Viet Tan.