Castro's Daughter Cries for Cuba's Plight

Fidel Castro's daughter is speaking out against the arrest and jailing of 27 journalists a year ago for voicing their opposition to the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

"At least we can try to keep those people alive by keeping them in the news," Alina Fernandez (Castro) told the Montreal Gazette from her home in Miami, Fla.

"We have to take every opportunity to let people know about the situation [in Cuba]."

Invited to come to Canada by Reporters Without Borders, which calls her homeland with 30 reporters behind bars to date the world's biggest prison for journalists, Fernandez said: "The most frustrating thing is no one - no countries, not the United Nations - is able to do anything about the situation facing our political prisoners. There are people who are dying and nobody can do anything because the Cuban regime has total impunity."

Noting that "Canada is one of the most powerful commercial associates of the regime," she said that "A lot of Canadian tourists go down to Cuba. I'm not trying to change any of that but just to let people know what's really going on."

The 27 journalist arrested on March 18, 2003, were charged with "acts against the independence and economy of Cuba" and "acts against the territorial integrity of the state."

"It's a country that hides behind a legend and has so for more than half a century," Fernandez said of her father, to whom she never refers by name.

Editor's note: