[f]idel 451

From the Washington Times:

Among [f]idel [c]astro's brutal legacies are the imprisoned independent librarians among the authors, labor organizers, journalists and other "prisoners of conscience" (designated as such by Amnesty International) who will remain in cages as long as the dictatorship continues, even without [c]astro. The librarians are being punished for making available to Cubans books not permitted in the heavily censored state-run library system.

From kangaroo-court records I have seen, when independent librarians are sent to the gulags, certain confiscated books and sometimes all books in their libraries are ordered incinerated by the presiding judge. A biography of Martin Luther King was sent to the flames because, said the judge, it "is based on ideas that could be used to promote social disorder and civil disobedience." And the nonviolent King's own books have been burned.

Even works by Jose Marti, the 19th-century organizer of Cuban independence, have been incinerated. Maybe because of the pamphlet he wrote during his exile in Spain, planning the liberation of his homeland. Marti's pamphlet was about the horrors of political imprisonment in Cuba under a pre-[c]astro dictator.

Among thousands of other incinerated "subversive" books and pamphlets are those books by George Orwell, Pope John Paul II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (particularly dangerous) and reports by Human Rights Watch. [...]