Cuban Exiles in Spain: Grateful or Regretful?
by Olivia Stransky / September 1, 2011 / No comments
The Ladies in White marched in Cuba for the freedom of their husbands, sons, and brothers. Photo: MercoPress.
March 2011 marked the release of the last two members of the Group of 75, Cuban activists who were arrested in 2003 during the Black Spring, a government crackdown on grassroots activism. Twenty-nine of the arrested were journalists, and the European Union stated that the arrests “constituted a breach of the most elementary human rights, especially as regards freedom of expression and political association.”
Most of the prisoners were forced to accept exile as a condition of their release, and thirty-nine were sent to Spain, many within the past year. However twelve of the thirty-nine have already left Spain for the United States.
Radio Netherlands interviewed four Cuban exiles currently living in Spain and found that, for some, life has hardly changed since being released from prison.
Read Radio Netherland’s article here.
Read a letter from journalist and poet Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso, one of the released activists.
