HRF Honors Global Cuba Solidarity Day

NEW YORK (May 21, 2010) – The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) released videos of former prisoner of conscience Armando Valladares and world-renowned blogger Yoani Sánchez in honor of Global Cuba Solidarity Day. The videos were filmed exclusively for the 2010 Oslo Freedom Forum and are now available on YouTube.

“The recent death by hunger strike of Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata reminds us that Cuba remains a brutal dictatorship. Both Valladares and Sánchez stress the urgent need for the international community to speak up on behalf of Cuban citizens in the face of the abuses perpetrated by their government,” said Thor Halvorssen, president of HRF.

Valladares spoke on April 29, at an event open to the public during the Oslo Freedom Forum. Sánchez’s interview, taped covertly by HRF filmers in April of 2010, was also screened at the conference.

“The government prohibited Sánchez from speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum, so HRF personnel volunteered to go film her in Cuba, despite the obvious risks,” said Halvorssen. “We firmly believe that these voices are the ones that need to be heard – those of the people on the front lines who are silenced and punished because of their views. Yoani Sánchez was subjected to a beating in the streets of Havana on November of 2009,” continued Halvorssen.

In the 13-minute video, Sánchez describes why she started her blog Generación Y, which, as U.S. President Barack Obama wrote, “provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba" and has been translated into 17 languages. Her blog is not proof of free speech in Cuba, she says, but rather it is "proof of people’s audacity that, with no liberty and no technological infrastructure, we have been able to send our message to the outside world." She explains that the death of Zapata catalyzed unity among Cubans and indignation against the government, whose reputation is deteriorating abroad.

Valladares, who survived inhumane conditions, daily torture, forced labor, and solitary confinement during 22 years in Fidel Castro’s prisons due to his peaceful opposition to the Cuban regime, asks the international community to treat Cuba the same way it treated the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile and apartheid in South Africa, and to show the same solidarity it expressed to the people of those countries.

“His call to action – to defend citizens from human rights violations, whether perpetrated by a leftist or a rightist government – could not be more timely given the threats to human rights occurring in regimes as politically diverse as Burma, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and, of course, Cuba,” said Halvorssen.

The Oslo Freedom Forum is committed to bringing together the world’s foremost human rights defenders to share their experiences and expertise with an audience of global leaders. It has included the participation of human rights heroes such as Václav Havel, Lubna al-Hussein, Anwar Ibrahim, Rebiya Kadeer, Greg Mortenson, Armando Valladares, Lech Walesa, Elie Wiesel, Lidia Yusupova, Harry Wu, and Leyla Zana.

HRF is an international nonpartisan organization devoted to defending human rights in the Americas. It centers its work on the twin concepts of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny. These ideals include the belief that all human beings have the rights to speak freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to participate in the governments of their countries; HRF’s ideals likewise find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and coercion in matters of conscience. HRF does not support nor condone violence. HRF’s International Council includes former prisoners of conscience Vladimir Bukovsky, Palden Gyatso, Václav Havel, Mutabar Tadjibaeva, Ramón J. Velásquez, Elie Wiesel, and Harry Wu.

Contact: Sarah Wasserman, Human Rights Foundation, (212) 246.8486, info@thehrf.org

To view Armando Valladares’s video, please visit here.

To view Yoani Sánchez’s video, please visit here.

For more information on Global Cuba Solidarity Day, please click here.

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