PEN Honors Cuban Dissident
An independent journalist, Normando Hernández González, was awarded the 2007 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on Monday night. He could not travel to receive the award at the PEN American Center's Literary Gala because he languishes in prison in Cuba for his role in starting an independent newspaper and a school for journalists there.
Mr. Hernández, 38, was the youngest of 75 writers, journalists, and activists arrested on March 18, 2003. He was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for writing articles critical of state-run services.
"He has suffered terribly in prison and is in extremely poor health," said the director of Freedom to Write and International Programs at the PEN American Center, Larry Siems. He said 16 of the more internationally known and recognized writers have been released. Mr. Siems said Mr. Hernández had engaged in a hunger strike, been beaten by the prison chief of security, and contracted tuberculosis during his imprisonment.
Mr. Siems said Mr. Hernández was targeted because he was young, energetic, and extremely principled and committed. Raúl Rivero, who is a formerly imprisoned Cuban dissident poet and journalist now living in Spain, spoke on a video and urged help for Mr. Hernández.
Mr. Hernández's mother, Blanca, traveled to New York from Miami, where she resides, to read a message from her imprisoned son. Before she spoke, the black-tie audience rose to give her a standing ovation. She spoke in Spanish and her translator, Anolan Ponce, read the English.
"The encouragement that I receive today serves to recognize the work of the independent Cuban writers and journalists, especially those who languish between walls of terror for exercising a right as noble as the right to write." Mr. Hernández ended his message by saying, "Today, when those who kill freedom of expression are becoming actual killers of men, as they kill me in a slow, subtle and premeditated way, I thank, with these sincere words from the heart of one whose conscience is clear, PEN American Center for awarding me the Freedom to Write Prize." In his message, he thanked his mother for instilling in him moral and ethical values: "The patience you showed in teaching me how to read under the bamboo in our yard was not in vain."
Mr. Siems told The New York Sun that the purpose of the award was "to shine a very, very bright light on this case" and let the Cuban authorities know that the world is aware of Mr. Hernández and holds the government responsible for his well-being.
