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In its third edition, journalist and foreign policy analyst Jorge Elias, the Chairman of DAIA Julio Schlosser and the Catholic intellectual and Cuban dissident Dagoberto Valdes served as guest speakers. Also, a diplomat from the embassy of Romania read a message and the Consul of the Czech Republic in Buenos Aires closed the event.
The conference is an initiative of the Vaclav Havel Institute of International Democratic Solidarity Program of CADAL and this year sponsored by the embassies of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the following entities: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Delegation of Argentine Israeli Associations (DAIA), Forum 2000, People In Need, UN Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The conference was opened by Gabriel C. Salvia, Chairman of the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL).
Then Jorge Elias, author of the book “Kill the mailman” published by CADAL, offered an analysis of the report of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) about the 10 countries which most suffer from censorship.
Then, Julio Schlosser, President of the Delegation Argentine Isaeli Associations (DAIA), referred to the persistence of anti-Semitism throughout history and the current situation at national and regional level.
On his turn, Dagoberto Valdes, Director of the Center Convivencia in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, presented the mission and challenges of Cuban civil society in the present and the future of Cuba in the context of the restoration of Cuba-American relations and the Pope's visit to Cuba.
At last, Mircea Borza, Economic Counselor of the Embassy of Romania shared the activities organized in order to commemorate the victims of totalitarianism.
The end of the event was in charge of Milan Frola, Consul of the Czech Republic in Argentina, who referred to the figure of Vaclav Havel.
Julio Schlosser, of the DAIA with ambassadors Hella Sekhniachvili (Georgia), Robert Fry (Canada) and Patrick Renault (Belgium).
Nina Olsen, embassy of Denmark; Milan Frola, embassy of the Czech Republic; and Loes van den Elzen, embassy of The Netherlands.
Agustín Menéndez, Cecilia de la Torre, Mercedes Llano, Gabriel Salvia, Horacio Fernández and Ricardo Lagorio.
Miruna Rusen and Mircea Borza of the Romanian embassy, together with the intern of the Swiss embassy.
The "Black Ribbon Day" was adopted by the European Parliament and subsequently followed by Canada. This initiative was proposed by Vaclav Havel and other European politicians and human rights activists in Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, signed on June 3, 2008. On August 23, recalls the day the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed, when the Soviet Union and National Socialist Germany divided Eastern Europe. For the former President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, those were "the collusion of the two worst forms of totalitarianism in the history of mankind."
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