An empty chair draped in a Cuban flag symbolised Havana's refusal to allow dissident Guillermo Farinas to pick up the Sakharov rights prize Wednesday, an echo of last week's Nobel ceremony. In a recorded message to the European Parliament, which gave him the award, Farinas described himself as 'a psychologist, librarian, independent journalist (and) three-time political prisoner'. 'I accept the prize,' he said, 'because I feel I am a tiny part of the rebellious spirit of this people I am proud to belong to.' The statement, in which the 48-year-old dissident repeatedly slammed the Cuban regime as 'totalitarian', 'autocratic' and 'savage', brought the more than 700 members of the parliament to their feet in resounding applause. 'This empty chair,' said parliament president Jerzy Buzek, 'demonstrates just how much this award was necessary.' But the former Polish premier said there was hope for Cuba in the history of eastern Europe. 'History repeats itself. In my country everything changed, and that is a reason to be optimistic.' 'Our community of democratic nations today send a strong signal to Cuba,' he said. Farinas was unable to travel to the French city that houses the parliament because Cuban officials failed to deliver an exit visa. In his message he urged Europeans to fight for the release of Cuba's political prisoners, help end anti-opposition attacks and call for the creation of opposition parties and trade unions. 'My biggest hope is that you will not let yourselves be fooled by the siren song of a cruel regime of savage communism,' Farinas said. He urged Europe to maintain what is known as the 1996 'common position' binding political dialogue with Cuba to its respect for human rights. Cuba's 'sole aspiration, after simulating imaginary economic changes, is for the European Union and Parliament to lift the common position so they can benefit from credits and investments,' he added. 'I ask you not to cave in to the demands of Cuba's governmental elite,' he said in the message sent from his home in Santa Clara, east of Havana. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton pledged to continue to raise human rights issues with Cuba -- including political prisoners, freedom of expression and ratification of the international bill of human rights. 'In this context, I welcome the recent release of a number of political prisoners in Cuba and I hope that the process will lead to the unconditional release of all political prisoners,' she said in a statement. Not everyone welcomed Farinas's selection, and a dozen MEPs, including French communist members and the head of the country's Left Front Jean-Luc Melenchon, walked out of the chamber. 'The parliament is waging anti-communist crusades I find exasperating,' he told selfnews. Buzek on Monday had made a last-minute plea for the Cuban authorities to let Farinas leave the island to pick up the EU rights prize, but it fell on deaf ears. Past winners of the 50,000-euro (64,150-dollar) award -- named after late Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov -- include Nelson Mandela, Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi and former UN chief Kofi Annan. The United States expressed its disappointment that Farinas had been prevented from travelling to the ceremony but offered its own tribute. 'Through his actions, he has clearly helped draw international attention to the plight of political prisoners in Cuba, and eventually led to the release of many of them,' State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. Farinas was nominated for the prize in October after staging a 135-day hunger strike, his 23rd, following the February death of fellow dissident Orlando Zapata. He ended the protest when President Raul Castro authorised the release of 52 political prisoners on the heels of talks with senior Roman Catholic Church clerics in Havana. 'I believe that the Cuban government has shown over the years that it is behaving in an arrogant manner,' he told selfnews in a telephone interview on the eve of the awards. 'They think that we citizens of Cuba are slaves -- their behaviour demonstrates that.' Farinas is the third Cuban to receive the prize, after Oswaldo Paya in 2002 and the 2005 attribution to the Ladies in White, a group of women whose dissident husbands are jailed. Last Friday the Nobel Peace Prize committee was obliged to present this year's award to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in his absence. 