Posted: 6/16/2006 3:04:00 PM
Author: Walter Skold
Source: http://4freadom.blogspot.com/
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Thugs Destroy Another Library Collection
by Walter Skold (Freadom Blog: Librarians, Writers and Activists for Intellectual Freedom in Cuba and Around the World)
If any more evidence is needed as to why the ALA needs to speak up and speak out regarding the continuing assault on liberty and intellectual freedom that plagues Cuba like Pharoah had a beard, here is yet more news of a library director ARRESTED and a collection of books CONFISCATED. By the way, ALA Council's resident USCommunistParty "intellectual," Mark Rosenzweig, posts articles from the "Militant" which deny the police do these sorts of things. If Council members read a little wider than "The Militant" the votes on Cuba might improve.
Note from Librarians for Fairness: The above-mentioned Mark Rosenzweig, a self-avowed Marxist, is one of the main leaders of the ALA's long and sordid history of bashing Israel via one-sided and bigoted resolutions
_______________________________________________
"Moa Library Raided, Director Arrested
NEW YORK, June 8, 2006 (Friends of Cuban Libraries) - According to a news
report by Juan Carlos Garcell of the APLO new agency, on May 31 a combined
operation of the National Revolutionary Police and the Cuban State Security Police
raided the Pedro Luís Boitel Library (branch number 3) in Moa, a town in
eastern Cuba. The news report was published by CubaNet (www.cubanet.org).
The security forces confiscated the library's collection and arrested the
director, Felipe Disnayd Ramos Leiva. The raid, carried out in the presence of
officials of the nationwide system of block committees known as Committees to
Defend the Revolution (CDR), began at 5:00 P.M. and lasted two hours. Among the
confiscated library materials were fifty pounds of books, 150 magazines, and
pamphlets issued by the International Labor Organization (ILO), a unit of the
United Nations.
At 9:00 P.M. on the day of the raid, library director Ramos Leiva was driven
away in a Lada automobile, along with the seized library collection. Later
that night Mr. Ramos Leiva was set free, but the police refused to give him a
document listing the confiscated materials taken from his house at 9 First
Street, Joselillo District, Moa, where the Pedro Luís Boitel Library is located. The
library was founded on January 18 of this year by the Eastern Democratic
Alliance.
The seizure of the Pedro Luís Boitel Library is the latest incident in a
campaign directed against Cuba's pioneering independent library movement, founded
in 1998, which has created a network of uncensored libraries throughout the
island dedicated to providing public access to reading materials reflecting all
points of view."
Thanks to Bob Kent for circulating this news report.
