Black Spring (Cuba)

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Félix Navarro , released in March 2011 after eight years of imprisonment as the last political prisoner of the "Group of 75"

The term Black Spring (Spanish: La Primavera Negra ) describes the wave of state violence in March and April 2003 in Cuba , in which around 80 non-violent regime critics, including 27 journalists, were imprisoned and sentenced to long prison terms, as well as three main perpetrators of a bloodless failure Hijacking a passenger ferry were executed after a short trial.

Convictions

75 of the prisoners were sentenced to prison terms in April 2003 on the basis of Article 91 of the Criminal Code or Act No. 88 ( Ley de Protección de la Independencia Nacional y la Economía de Cuba , German: "Law for the Protection of National Independence and the Economy of Cuba") sentenced between six and 30 years.

The three suspected leaders of a group of eleven who had seized control of a ferry with several dozen passengers in Havana Bay on April 2, were executed on April 11. According to the government, there were no injuries during the kidnapping. The kidnappers were sentenced to death in a brief trial, despite the fact that the maximum legal sentence for a crime without injury was 20 years. Four of the accomplices were sentenced to life imprisonment, the remaining four to terms of between 2 and 30 years in prison.

Reactions

Demonstration of the ladies in white in Havana

Two weeks after the arrests, the relatives of the detainees founded the organization Damas de Blanco ( women in white ) in protest .

In June 2003, the human rights organization Amnesty International recognized the 75 as political prisoners and began campaigning for their release. Since then, the detainees have been known as the "Group of 75", which also includes four later convicts, who in January 2004 were also recognized by Amnesty International as political prisoners.

José Saramago

Numerous international public figures wrote open letters to Fidel Castro to protest against the wave of repression. The most prominent international intellectuals who signed a joint declaration published in the Mexican-Spanish literary magazine Letras Libres included José Saramago , Günter Grass , Mario Vargas Llosa , Fernando Savater , Pedro Almodóvar , Fernando Savater and Hans Magnus Enzensberger . Nobel laureate in literature Saramago, who had previously been a loyal supporter of Castro, said in El País that the Cuban government had "lost its confidence, damaged its hopes and betrayed its expectations" with the arrests and shootings. A group of the best-known left-wing intellectuals in the United States around Noam Chomsky , Samuel Farber , Edward Said , Immanuel Wallerstein and Howard Zinn combined their protest with criticism of US foreign policy, which, however, did not justify the Cuban leadership's anti-democracy and freedom of expression measures.

The Black Spring led to a significant deterioration in Cuba's relations with the states of the European Union . The EU governments agreed to reduce diplomatic contacts with Havana and the Cuban government withdrew its application to join the economically advantageous Cotonou Agreement .

redundancies

Guillermo Fariñas

One of the 79 detainees, Orlando Zapata , who was sentenced to a total of 25 years in prison, died in February 2010 after an 85-day hunger strike . This sparked a wave of violent protests at home and abroad and led to increased efforts to get those detained at the time to be released. One of the most internationally acclaimed actions was a hunger strike by government critic and former political prisoner Guillermo Fariñas in response to Zapata's death , with which he tried to persuade the Cuban government to release 26 sick political prisoners and which he only ended after 135 days.

In the summer of 2010, after negotiations with the Catholic Church and the Spanish government, the Cuban government declared its readiness to gradually release the 55 remaining political prisoners of the group. As a result of the agreement, most of the prisoners left immediately after their release with their families with no right of return to Spain. Óscar Espinosa Chepe , who had always refused to go into exile, died in September 2013. Only one prisoner served his entire sentence in prison (Reinaldo Labrada Peña, released in 2009), all others were released prematurely from prison with conditionality ( licencia extrapenal ) . José Daniel Ferrer and Félix Navarro were the last inmates of the Group of 75 to be released on March 23, 2011. Only 12 of the 79 are currently still in their home country (as of May 2014), including the prominent opposition members Martha Beatriz Roque , José Daniel Ferrer, Héctor Maseda, Ángel Moya and Elías Biscet.

See also

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Article 91 / Law 88 ( Memento of the original of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. International Pen Writers in Prison Committee @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pen.org
  2. ↑ La Primavera Negra de 2003 Website “Las Damas de Blanco”, accessed on March 22, 2011
  3. ↑ a b Cuba: "Essential measures"? Human rights crackdown in the name of security account of Amnesty International's June 2, 2003 case, accessed April 14, 2011
  4. ↑ Martin Jordan: Hijackers executed by ferry in Cuba, in: Tagesspiegel of April 13, 2003, accessed on May 30, 2014
  5. ↑ Cuba: Newly declared prisoners of conscience (English) Amnesty International press release of January 29, 2004, accessed December 28, 2011
  6. ↑ Cartas abiertas contra lareprión en Cuba, open protest letter "Against the oppression in Cuba" in Letras Libres from May 2003, accessed on May 30, 2014 (Spanish)
  7. ↑ José Saramago: Hasta aquí he llegado, in: El País of April 14, 2003, accessed on May 30, 2014 (Spanish)
  8. ↑ Campaign for Peace and Democracy: Statement Protesting Repression in Cuba , appeal of March 2003, CPD website, accessed on May 30, 2014 (English)
  9. ↑ Günther Maihold: From the special case to normalization (PDF) p. 2, SWP-Aktuell, May 2014, accessed on May 30, 2014
  10. ^ Dissident in Cuba dies after hunger strike , zeit.de, February 24, 2010.
  11. ↑ Martin Polansky: Cuban Guillermo Fariñas receives Sakharov Prize: Hunger for Democracy , in: Tagesschau.de from October 15, 2010, accessed on May 30, 2014
  12. ↑ Amnesty International: On the Human Rights Situation in Cuba (PDF), February 2012, accessed on May 30, 2014
  13. ↑ Cuba frees prisoners of conscience (English) Amnesty International on 23 March 2011 called on November 5, 2018
  14. ↑ Relación de prisioneros del group de los 75 ( Memento of the original dated May 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Spanish) In: Blog Miguel Galbán Gutiérrez desde el destierro, April 5, 2014, accessed May 30, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / miguelgalbangutierrez.wordpress.com