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Cuban
activists 'held at US base'
BBC,
UK, Thursday, 20 May, 2004.
Thirty Cuban dissidents are being held
by US authorities at the Guantanamo Bay
naval base, a Cuban exile leader says.
The head of the Miami-based Democracy Movement,
Ramon Saul Sanchez, told the BBC the dissidents
fled Cuba last year after the arrest of
75 activists.
They were stopped by US vessels and had
been held secretly for the past year - even
though they had been promised passage to
a third country, he said.
The US says its Cuba base holds nearly
600 prisoners from the "war on terror".
There is no reported comment from US officials
on the allegations.
'Women and children'
The 30 dissidents reportedly left Cuba
after a March 2003 round-up of opponents
of the government of President Fidel Castro.
Seventy-five activists were imprisoned
for up to 28 years last April.
The Guantanamo group is said to include
four women and four children.
Mr Sanchez told the BBC that Washington
had threatened to hand over the dissidents
to the Cuban authorities if they talked
to the press.
Human rights groups have criticised the
facility and the treatment of detainees.
The US government has released dozens of
the prisoners after concluding that they
did not pose a threat.
"If we are in a time when terrorists
are being released from Guantanamo because
they have found out that they are no harm...
why are we keeping human rights activists
incarcerated?" Mr Sanchez said.
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