Feb. 13.─ No sooner had Cuban President Raúl Castro returned to Havana from Chile, where he was sworn in as the new president of the Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States—CELAC), than Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders—RSF) repeated his own words back to him. The French-based NGO released a letter Monday urging the Cuban leader to release journalists currently held in Cuban prisons and called on Castro to reject, in Cuba, the "aggression, threats and use of force" he mentioned during his CELAC acceptance speech.
During the CELAC summit, Castro had said he had "total respect for international law and the United Nations Charter." In response, RSF requested "that these undertakings quickly be given concrete expression in your own country."
RSF applauded Cuba's migration law reforms, which took effect on January 14. "It means that Cubans who want to travel abroad no longer need an exit permit and are guaranteed the right to return," the group said, though they demanded that the new reforms be applied to all citizens without distinction, including dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez, who recently obtained a passport. RSF said that Sánchez "must be allowed to return at the end of the regional trip she plans to begin soon."
"The door should also be open for all the journalists and dissidents who want to come back after being forced into exile, and for all those in Cuba who would now like to travel," RSF said.
The statement also called for more open discussion on the island in the future. "Dialogue will only be possible if Cuba stops cracking down on citizens 'guilty' of providing domestic news coverage that is not controlled by the state. The authorities must abolish this control at once, recognize diverse news reporting and release all those who have been unjustly imprisoned," RSF said ...
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[ Letter to Raúl Castro ]