Czech Republic Offers to Take in Some Released Cuban Dissidents

[Mika]

Czech Republic Offers to Take in Some Released Cuban Dissidents
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=364037&CategoryId=14510

Czech Republic Offers to Take in Some Released Cuban Dissidents

MADRID – The Czech Republic made an offer to the Spanish government and the Cuban Catholic Church to take in some of the political prisoners who are scheduled to be released in the coming days by the Castro regime.

Czech authorities are willing to provide political asylum to “two or three” Cuban opposition figures and about a dozen of their closest relatives, officials at the Czech Embassy in Spain said.

Prague sent its proposal to Havana Archbishop Cardinal Jaime Ortega and to the Spanish Foreign Ministry.

In addition to granting them political refugee status, the released prisoners and their relatives who choose to go to the Czech Republic would receive residency and work permission, economic aid and schooling for their children.

“We’re prepared to take them in, but it remains to be seen if this will occur in practice,” the Czech diplomats said.

The Cubans who travel to the Central European country would first go to Madrid from Havana, in accord with the protocol established by the Castro regime, the Catholic Church and the Spanish government.

That is what transpired in the case of Jose Ubaldo Izquierdo, who was taken in as a political refugee by Chile, where he traveled after remaining for 10 days in Madrid.

Other released prisoners taken in by Spain have expressed their desire to go to the United States once all the documentation to do so is completed.

The Czech Republic, which does not have an embassy in Havana, is one of the countries that traditionally has been the most critical of the Castro regime.

The Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, in recent days defended the release of Cuban political prisoners as a positive step, but one that is insufficient to get the European Union to change its so-called common position vis-a-vis Cuba because the Castro regime has not made any deep reforms in its human rights policy.

The common European position, which has been in force since 1996, links dialogue with the communist island to advances by Havana in democracy and freedoms.

If they want them, then, PLEASE TAKE THEM!

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[naaman fletcher]

1. so then..

you think anyone who wants to leave Cuba should be allowed to leave?