Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-10-Speech-3-379"
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"en.20100310.23.3-379"2
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"Madam President, firstly I want to express my own deep sympathy for the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo and my deepest concern for the four further Cuban prisoners and one opposition activist who have themselves started hunger strikes in protest.
The European Parliament should reiterate our call for the immediate and unconditional release of prisoners of conscience in Cuba – 55 according to Amnesty International, 200 according to Cuba’s Human Rights Commission – and we should express particular concern today for the recent detention and beating of Darsi Ferrer, director of a health and human rights centre in Havana. Amnesty International itself has not been invited to visit Cuba for 19 years and should be allowed to do so. We should ask the Cuban Government to agree specific dates for the proposed visit of Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, who we intend to meet in Geneva next week.
As I am one of the people in this House who has always opposed the US embargo on trade, inflicted since 1962, I have welcomed the fact that under President Obama, measures have been approved to allow Cuban Americans to travel more freely as well as sending more money home. I welcomed the review in 2008 of our EU common position leading to the establishment of a political dialogue between Cuba and the EU and re-establishing EC development cooperation, and I welcome the fact that the BBC has recently been given free access to Cuba. But I express disappointment that, in the United Nations Human Rights Council, Cuba has failed to agree the recommendations to ratify the two key human rights conventions – the ICCPR and the ICESCR – and to allow independent inspection of prisons.
I say to the Commission and to the Presidency this afternoon that you – and all of us who visit Cuba – should remain firm in ensuring that we meet members of Cuban civil society. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bisa Williams, was able to undertake such an unrestricted visit last year and we should insist – any of us that go to Cuba – that we do the same."@en1
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