The omniscient InstaPundit has publicized today the latest developments in the American Library Association's attempt to paint a benign face on Cuban repression while it also lobbies bitterly against John Ashcroft's efforts to root out genuine terrorists here at home.
This travesty was noted here earlier in June but now the confrontation inside ALA is coming to a head at their annual meeting. Librarianship is a noble profession, but librarians who profess a foundational commitment to a non-negotiable "Freedom to Read" have no business ignoring the plight of Cubans taking a stand to do the same.
A cold war has broken out at a librarians' conference in downtown Toronto as accusations fly that pro-Castro elements within the American Library Association are trying to silence debate over Cuba's crackdown on independent libraries.The battle has laid the groundwork for the improbable scenario of a shouting match among librarians at a meeting tomorrow.
The ALA has "secretly manoeuvered to have only pro-Cuban voices" on a discussion panel, said Robert Kent, a co-founder of the Friends of Cuban Libraries and a librarian with the New York Public Library. "And the extremists within the ALA are going to try to pack the meeting to exclude people who might be critical of the Cuban government."
Fearing the panel will ignore the plight of Cuba's independent librarians, many of whom have been imprisoned, some delegates have vowed to force their way into the debate tomorrow.
Their concern is for the 14 self-styled librarians, many of them journalists or writers, who open their private collections to the public, and who were jailed with 64 others in March for treason, while the world was preoccupied with Iraq.
via the National Post (Canada)
Posted by Alan at June 21, 2003 02:33 PM