Such is the romance with Castro (and the power of underdog status granted by the punishing American embargo) that six months after Cuba’s March 2003 crackdown on dissidents, where eighty people were thrown in gaol after one-day trials behind closed doors (many given sentences of more than twenty years), we can still raise a couple of ‘Cheers’at a table halfway around the world.

And yet Cuba is one of the worst offenders against the right to free expression, matched only by the likes of Iran, Vietnam and China in the number of writers in prison and the length of sentences given. Last year, well over thirty per cent of International PEN’s ‘main cases’ (the writers PEN has found to be imprisoned for peacefully expressing their opinions) were in Cuban gaols. People such as writer-economist Marta Beatriz Roque, writer-journalist Raúl Rivero and independent journalist Miguel Galván Gutiérrez were among the thirty-four independent journalists and librarians sentenced in the March 2003 crackdown.

Sydney PEN, one of five International PEN centres in Australia, has named the 39-year-old Galván an honorary member. Galván was a journalist with Havana Press, an independent news agency, and was sentenced to twenty-six years. This past May, Galván, who is understood to have a physical disability, was transferred to a section of the prison that houses murderers and other inmates considered highly dangerous. It is claimed that a prison guard was encouraging other prisoners to attack him physically and sexually. A few writers, including Roque, have recently been released due to their deteriorating health. PEN calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Galván and the other writers still in gaol in Cuba.