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Supporting Scientists and Human Rights in Cuba

The Academy’s Human Rights Committee supports jailed Cuban scientists while much of the world’s attention is focused on Iraq.

Published April 16, 2003

By Jennifer Tang
Academy Contributor

Image courtesy of Manpeppe via stock.adobe.com.

With the eyes of the world focused on Iraq, the Cuban government has – since March 18 – hastily tried, sentenced and imprisoned at least 80 political dissidents including Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello, Ph.D., recipient of the New York Academy of Sciences’ (the Academy’s) 2002 Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award.

Founder and director of the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists and leader of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society (APS, an umbrella organization of 300 human rights groups), Roque Cabello, 56, was arrested and jailed along with dozens of other human rights activists – including scientists, intellectuals and independent journalists. She was tried in secret and sentenced to a 20-year prison term on April 7.

Oscar Elias Biscet, a medical doctor and head of the Friends of Human Rights project, was also tried and subsequently sentenced to serve 25 years in prison. Biscet, 45, had been released from prison only last October after serving a three-year sentence for publicly releasing a medical report revealing a secret government program on birth-rate control in Cuba.

“Unprecedented” Crackdown on Dissidents

“This recent crackdown by the Cuban government on political dissidents is unprecedented,” said Eugene M. Chudnovsky, distinguished professor of Physics at Herbert H. Lehman College, City University of New York. An active member of the Academy’s Committee on Human Rights of Scientists, Chudnovsky formerly served as chairman of the American Physical Society’s Committee on International Freedom of Scientists and has been actively engaged in supporting the rights of Cuban scientists since 1997. Chudnovsky’s most recent visit to Cuba came in early April. He was not permitted to see Roque Cabello to present her with the Pagels Award in person, as planned, but did meet with a number of her friends and associates, including Felix Bonne Carcases and Rene Gomez Manzano.

Carcases is an engineer and former professor at the University of Havana, Manzano a well known independent journalist and dissident. Both are former political prisoners. He also met with Biscet’s wife, Elsa Morejon, a former chief nurse at the Havana Hospital of Endocrinology who has not been permitted to hold a professional job in Cuba since her husband was arrested in 1998.

At the request of Professor and APS President Myriam Sarachik, Chudnovsky also met with officials at the Cuban University of Science and Nuclear Technology. He delivered a letter from the APS Committee on the International Freedom of Scientists to Professor Victor Fajer, president of the Cuban Physical Society, and Professor Fernando Guzman Martinez, rector of the university.

“Without being confrontational, I informed Professors Fajer and Martinez that the U.S. and European human rights organizations will be asking scientists who plan to come to scientific meetings in Cuba to take a stand and either refuse to go, or come and openly protest against politically motivated arrests,” Chudnovsky said.

Ensuring Adequate Health Care and Support for Legal Appeals

Although the professors expressed support for the government policies, Chudnovsky said “they were visibly concerned with the possible outcome for the forthcoming conferences in Cuba. They promised to take this concern to the Cuban National Academy of Sciences.”

Chudnovsky also met with leaders of the Cuban National Academy. However, the focus of this session was primarily to establish a channel of communication between the Academy and the Cuban Academy.

Since Chudnovsky’s return, said Joseph L. Birman, distinguished professor of Physics at City College and City University of New York and chair of the Academy’s Committee on Human Rights of Scientists, the “first priority” has been to work with the International Red Cross and other organizations on ensuring that each of the prisoners receive adequate medical care while in jail. Next, he said, the group will work to see that prisoners who appeal their sentences are provided “with their own choice of lawyer and international observers.”

In addition, the Academy is working with the Committee of Concerned Scientists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and other professional organizations to collect information on upcoming scientific meetings in Cuba. “Scientists planning to attend these meetings will be urged to either withdraw and give a full explanation to their prospective hosts and conference organizers that they are doing so to protest the egregious miscarriage of international norms,” Birman said, “or attend the meeting and – for example – dedicate their presentation to one or more of the imprisoned persons.”

“I believe that lives are at risk, especially for colleagues (like Roque Cabello and Biscet) who are in their 40s or older and have lived under stress and privation for years,” Birman said.

Also read: Promoting Human Rights through Science


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