Digital freedom network starts campaign to free jailed cuban dissidents

Human Rights Organization Enables People to Make Free Protest Calls Over Internet

HACKENSACK, N.J, AUGUST 6, 1998 — The Digital Freedom Network launched an international campaign today for the unconditional release of four Cuban dissidents, who have been unlawfully imprisoned for more than a year.

Felix Bonne, Rene Gomez, Vladimiro Roca, and Marta Beatriz Roque, members of a Cuban human rights organization called the Internal Dissidence Working Group, were arrested in July 1997 after publishing a document called "The Homeland Belongs to Us All." The document urged the Cuban government to end government corruption, liberalize Cuba's economy, and improve human rights.

"These people should be released immediately," said Bobson Wong, the executive director of the Digital Freedom Network (DFN), an international free speech and human rights organization dedicated to publishing censored material on the Internet.

To encourage people to protest the dissidents' imprisonment, DFN is allowing people to make a limited amount of free phone calls to international officials over the Internet using a multimedia PC and Internet telephony software. The software can be downloaded from DFN's Web site at www.dfn.org/news/callcuba.html.

"This is a way for people to use the Internet to make a difference in the world," Wong said.

DFN's Web site also contains the complete text of "The Homeland Belongs to Us All" and other information about the four dissidents, including a letter from prison written by Roque.

"Their essay condemns tyranny and asks for a government that represents all Cubans. Ironically, Fidel Castro made the same points in his famous 1953 speech 'History Will Absolve Me.' He spoke those words at his trial after being arrested by the Cuban government," Wong said. "Castro should release these jailed dissidents — just as the Cuban government released him when he was in prison."

DFN is dedicated to publishing the censored works of individuals who have suffered serious human rights violations, such as physical torture or unfair imprisonment. DFN's Web site (www.dfn.org) contains restricted material from 18 countries in four continents. DFN works with other free speech and human rights organizations, such as the Committee to Protect

Journalists, Index on Censorship, and Reporters sans Frontieres.

FACT SHEET ABOUT THE JAILED CUBAN DISSIDENTS

THE WORKING GROUP DISSIDENTS

• Felix Bonne (an electrical engineer), Rene Gomez (a lawyer), Vladimiro Roca (an economist) and Marta Beatriz Roque (also an economist) belong to both the Internal Dissidence Working Group and Concilio Cubano, an umbrella group of pro-democracy organizations. In addition, each belongs to other independent pro-democracy organizations.
• All official nongovernmental organizations are affiliated with the Cuban government. The government does not officially recognize any of the pro-democracy organizations that the four dissidents belong to. As a result, these organizations must meet secretly and illegally.

"THE HOMELAND BELONGS TO US ALL"

• The four dissidents wrote "The Homeland Belongs to Us All" in response to a Cuban Communist Party (CCP) project document called The Party of Unity, Democracy, and the Human Rights We Defend. Prepared for the CCP's Fifth Congress in October 1997, the project document argued that Fidel Castro's Communist revolution of 1959 ended human rights violations and ushered in a peaceful, democratic, and prosperous era for Cuba.
• "The Homeland Belongs to Us All" argues that the current Cuban government cannot govern the country effectively. "The philosophy of the government is not to serve the people but to be their dictator," the dissidents write. They conclude that Cuba needs true democracy to survive.

Digital Freedom Network
Web: www.dfn.org