Secret Prison Libraries In Cuba
God bless these brave defiant Cuban women who've found a way for their imprisoned dissident husbands to practice internal resistance- right under the noses of castro's gulag goons.
From the friends of Cuban libraries:
When Fidel Castro ordered the jailing of 75 of the most active Cuban dissidents with sentences of up to 28 years, he dealt a harsh blow to the opposition movement. But [as the Spanish proverb says] no evil happens without something positive resulting from it. The wives of the "75" discovered a form of internal resistance that was unprecedented... [by taking in books during prison visits to create clandestine libraries]. The majority of the political prisoners are now spending their "free" time studying history, political science and poetry, learning languages and studying medical books. The people thrown in prison form the indisputable cream of the dissident movement. Before their arrest, they were independent reporters, labor activists, economists, physicians or librarians with a greater than average appetite for reading. Alfredo Felipe Fuentes is an independent journalist and librarian who before his arrest used to distribute an impressive collection of books on civil rights in his neighborhood. (His indictment declares: "noble literature in his library was mixed with books containing an evident inclination toward civil disobedience, inciting change in the social system and the Government.") And the list of publications confiscated from him mentions 50 titles on human rights, in addition to 51 copies of the International Declaration of Human Rights. Incriminating material, indeed! It isn't surprising that the prosecutor's demand that he be given 15 years was increased to 26 years. In the last few years, Alfredo has been deprived both of his human rights and of his books on this subject, but in his cell is a biography of Gandhi, Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, The Power of the Powerless by Vaclav Havel, and The Second Revolution by Adam Michnik....
Manuel V?zquez commented one time that, thanks to the books delivered by his wife Yolanda, his solitary cell seemed like a miniature version of the Frankfurt Book Fair. The books circulate among the political prisoners and the common criminals.... Manuel couldn't believe that all of those delightful books could have passed the scrutiny of the prison censors. Maybe the explanation is that if the guards were cultured enough to interpret the poems of Akhmatova and to distinguish between Karl Marx and Karl Popper, they would also be leaders of dissident movements and not employees of the State security system.
Read the story from The Friends of The Cuban Libraries.
www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org/
God bless these brave defiant Cuban women who've found a way for their imprisoned dissident husbands to practice internal resistance- right under the noses of castro's gulag goons.
From the friends of Cuban libraries:
When Fidel Castro ordered the jailing of 75 of the most active Cuban dissidents with sentences of up to 28 years, he dealt a harsh blow to the opposition movement. But [as the Spanish proverb says] no evil happens without something positive resulting from it. The wives of the "75" discovered a form of internal resistance that was unprecedented... [by taking in books during prison visits to create clandestine libraries]. The majority of the political prisoners are now spending their "free" time studying history, political science and poetry, learning languages and studying medical books. The people thrown in prison form the indisputable cream of the dissident movement. Before their arrest, they were independent reporters, labor activists, economists, physicians or librarians with a greater than average appetite for reading. Alfredo Felipe Fuentes is an independent journalist and librarian who before his arrest used to distribute an impressive collection of books on civil rights in his neighborhood. (His indictment declares: "noble literature in his library was mixed with books containing an evident inclination toward civil disobedience, inciting change in the social system and the Government.") And the list of publications confiscated from him mentions 50 titles on human rights, in addition to 51 copies of the International Declaration of Human Rights. Incriminating material, indeed! It isn't surprising that the prosecutor's demand that he be given 15 years was increased to 26 years. In the last few years, Alfredo has been deprived both of his human rights and of his books on this subject, but in his cell is a biography of Gandhi, Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, The Power of the Powerless by Vaclav Havel, and The Second Revolution by Adam Michnik....
Manuel V?zquez commented one time that, thanks to the books delivered by his wife Yolanda, his solitary cell seemed like a miniature version of the Frankfurt Book Fair. The books circulate among the political prisoners and the common criminals.... Manuel couldn't believe that all of those delightful books could have passed the scrutiny of the prison censors. Maybe the explanation is that if the guards were cultured enough to interpret the poems of Akhmatova and to distinguish between Karl Marx and Karl Popper, they would also be leaders of dissident movements and not employees of the State security system.
Read the story from The Friends of The Cuban Libraries.
www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org/
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