Instructions for writing the Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/14READ.html
The New York Times has a wonderful editorial today, March 26, condemning the March, 2003 crackdown in Cuba. The editorial specifically mentions the independent librarians now languishing in prison, along with journalists and writers, and goes on to describe the other “crimes”: “writing for Web sites based abroad, setting up independent libraries that offer books by the likes of Vaclav Havel and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and collecting signatures, in accordance with the Cuban Constitution, to petition for a referendum on fundamental reforms.”
Please write the Times, praise their editorial, and call for the release of the 75 dissidents, including the independent librarians. The Times noted that the U.N. Commission on Human Rights was considering “whether to condemn the Castro regime.” You may want to state that the U.N. should call for the immediate release of the dissidents or at minimum, ask for their wretched prison conditions to be improved.
Note that, like the Times, you can critique Washington for providing excellent cover for Castro’s crackdown–organizations such as Amnesty International have said that for a year. But two wrongs do not make a right. Let the Times know how you feel about crimes against free expression, everywhere.
Posted on this day, other years:
- Ruminating over Leadership - 2012
- DVD Review: Stepping into All Grain - 2009
- Life: A Great Cereal - 2006
- MPOW Talk at PLA 2006 - 2006
- Iconoclast Librarians: walking that fine line - 2005
- Hot Topics for DuPage Webcast - 2005
