March 18-20 is the fourth anniversary of the start of the “black spring” crackdown, during which the castro dictatorship rounded up about 80 journalists, librarians, democracy activists and other dissidents. By mid-April 2003, they had each been sentenced to lengthy terms in the gulag.
With an eye on the calendar and this sad anniversary, six political prisoners at the Kilo 8 prison in Camagüey have started a hunger strike. Their goal, according to a story posted at Payo Libre, is nothing less than the emptying of castro’s prisons of every prisoner of conscience.
I dare the world to look away as these brave men carry out their protest. If any of them were to die — and it is possible, considering how sick some of the protesters are — it would be an indictment of the world’s indifference to the truth about the castro dictatorship.
Read more about the hunger strike here.
Marc, somewhere on this blog, last year I posted a comment that addresses the world indifference.
It went something like this: It is easier for the world to be indifferent and not to look, b/c if they look they’d have to recognize, and if they recognize they would feel part of the problem and would have to do something about it.
By pretending it doesn’t exist they are able to avoid responsibility and morality on this issue.
Unfortunately, that’s how too many people think.