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PROHIBIDO PENSAR. LOS ROSTROS DE LA REPRESIÓN EN CUBA
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European Parliament, April 10 2007
Exhibition by Olivero Toscani
"Ley 1988"
On March 18th, 2003, 75 civil rights activists were arrested in Cuba. A few days later they were firmly condemned to extreme hard penalties, from 6 to 28 years of prison, for causes like “treachery or political conspiration”, based on the Law from 1988, approved in 1999 but never before applied. Law 88 has been renamed in Cuba as “Ley Mordaza” (Gag Law).
The exhibition, "Prohibido pensar, los rostros de la represión en Cuba", has a simple but efficient format. The faces of political prisoners, printed in violent black and white, in big posters, hung from the ceiling. The air and the passage of the public move the posters, letting them turn around. This produces a claustrophobic effect, a distressing oppression, a feeling of complete seclusion. The big posters become “cages” and remind the visitor how even their thinking is repressed in a brutal way. Here and there, among the hanging posters, reproduced in bright-red-bottom, appears Fidel Castro’s face, the main jailer.
"Prohibido pensar, los rostros de la represión en Cuba" is a project which serves both as exhibited “content” and declaration of political will. It has already been exhibited in Florence, with the sponsorship of the Toscana Regional Government, Budapest, Rome and Turin. In Spain, it was exhibited in Madrid, Barcelona and Cadiz. It will be next presented in the Netherlands, France, Sweden and the USA.
The ALDE Group in the European Parliament presents this exhibition with the objective to achieve a moment of reflection over the EU policy towards the island. In the days that followed the arrest of 75 dissidents and the 20-year jail sentence after political trials, the EU adopted sanctions towards Cuba; they were then suspended with the decision to establish a “political dialogue”.
Now it seems that only 14 out of the 75 activists won a conditional release for health-related reasons, while the remaining 61 rest in jail. According to the domestic monitoring group Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, there are 306 prisoners of conscience in Cuba, most of them sharing cells with common criminals and many convicted on vague charges such as “disseminating enemy propaganda” or “dangerousness”.
The exhibition by Oliviero Toscani aims at creating an event in the EP to understand whether, in the light of the serious abuses that continue to occur in Cuba, the EU dialogue actually influences the human rights situation or not.
On March 18, 2007, on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the arrest of 75 Cuban politicians, intellectuals and journalists, a delegation of activists and leaders of the Nonviolent Radical Party performed a non-authorized demonstration in Havana. The nonviolent action aimed at supporting the annual march organized by the Damas De Blanco (Ladies in White) notably the wives, girlfriends and daughters of those prisoners. The radical activists demanded that all political prisoners, including the radical member Francisco Chaviano - jailed in 1994 - be given amnesty and released. They also asked for the non-discrimination of homosexuals.
Exhibition by Olivero Toscani
"Ley 1988"
On March 18th, 2003, 75 civil rights activists were arrested in Cuba. A few days later they were firmly condemned to extreme hard penalties, from 6 to 28 years of prison, for causes like “treachery or political conspiration”, based on the Law from 1988, approved in 1999 but never before applied. Law 88 has been renamed in Cuba as “Ley Mordaza” (Gag Law).
The exhibition, "Prohibido pensar, los rostros de la represión en Cuba", has a simple but efficient format. The faces of political prisoners, printed in violent black and white, in big posters, hung from the ceiling. The air and the passage of the public move the posters, letting them turn around. This produces a claustrophobic effect, a distressing oppression, a feeling of complete seclusion. The big posters become “cages” and remind the visitor how even their thinking is repressed in a brutal way. Here and there, among the hanging posters, reproduced in bright-red-bottom, appears Fidel Castro’s face, the main jailer.
"Prohibido pensar, los rostros de la represión en Cuba" is a project which serves both as exhibited “content” and declaration of political will. It has already been exhibited in Florence, with the sponsorship of the Toscana Regional Government, Budapest, Rome and Turin. In Spain, it was exhibited in Madrid, Barcelona and Cadiz. It will be next presented in the Netherlands, France, Sweden and the USA.
The ALDE Group in the European Parliament presents this exhibition with the objective to achieve a moment of reflection over the EU policy towards the island. In the days that followed the arrest of 75 dissidents and the 20-year jail sentence after political trials, the EU adopted sanctions towards Cuba; they were then suspended with the decision to establish a “political dialogue”.
Now it seems that only 14 out of the 75 activists won a conditional release for health-related reasons, while the remaining 61 rest in jail. According to the domestic monitoring group Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, there are 306 prisoners of conscience in Cuba, most of them sharing cells with common criminals and many convicted on vague charges such as “disseminating enemy propaganda” or “dangerousness”.
The exhibition by Oliviero Toscani aims at creating an event in the EP to understand whether, in the light of the serious abuses that continue to occur in Cuba, the EU dialogue actually influences the human rights situation or not.
On March 18, 2007, on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the arrest of 75 Cuban politicians, intellectuals and journalists, a delegation of activists and leaders of the Nonviolent Radical Party performed a non-authorized demonstration in Havana. The nonviolent action aimed at supporting the annual march organized by the Damas De Blanco (Ladies in White) notably the wives, girlfriends and daughters of those prisoners. The radical activists demanded that all political prisoners, including the radical member Francisco Chaviano - jailed in 1994 - be given amnesty and released. They also asked for the non-discrimination of homosexuals.
