Strasbourg, 15/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - Before an empty chair draped with the Cuban flag, the president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek of Poland, awarded the Sakharov Prize to the journalist and defender of public freedoms in Cuba, Guillermo Farinas, at the plenary session in Strasbourg on Wednesday 15 December. Despite calls by Buzek, Havana did not permit Farinas to travel to receive in person the prize he was awarded last October, after a hunger strike of 135 days to call for the Cuban authorities to free political prisoners, which he ended on 8 July after the Cuban president, Raul Castro, freed 52 political prisoners further to intervention by the Catholic Church. Buzek, a leading figure in the opposition to the Polish Communist regime in the union Solidarnosc in the early 1980s, spoke out against Farinas's enforced absence, less than a week after the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010 was awarded to an empty chair representing the imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. “The fact that I cannot leave and return voluntarily to the island where I was born is, in itself, the most irrefutable witness to the fact that unfortunately, nothing has changed in the autocratic system ruling my country (…). My greatest hope is that you will not allow yourselves to be deceived by the siren songs of the cruel regime practising 'wild communism'”, said Farinas in his recorded message. “Socialism of State as a political model is a failure. We will continue our non-violent fight against Castro's repression”, Farinas concluded, calling on the EU to remain firm and to maintain the “common position” of 1996, which makes the political dialogue of the EU27 with Cuba conditional upon the country's observation of human rights. (EH./transl.fl)