May 5, 1997

LEADER OF YOUNG PEOPLE FOR DEMOCRACY IS DETAINED IN PALMA SORIANO

CALL GOES OUT FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH YOUNG CUBAN DEMOCRAT

Graciela de la Vega, the mother of Radames Garcia de la Vega, vice-president of the Cuban movement Jovenes por la Democracia (Young People for Democracy), is urgently requesting international solidarity to demand the freedom for her son, who is being held in Palma Soriano, and is being threatened with a trial for the alleged contempt to the person of the Commandant in Chief.

Radames Garcia de la Vega had been summoned by officer Ceden~o last April 29, and at this interview he order him to make himself available for a meeting with State Security officers in the locality of Versalles, Santiago de Cuba.

On April 30, he received a second summons to present himself, along with his identity papers, to the State Security offices at 3 o'clock. Since this office closes at 2, upon his arrival, he was not able to enter and returned along with his mother.

As they got out of a store, a political police officer, on a motorcycle, intercepted them on the street, and charged Radames without listening to his explanation. On May 1st, Graciela went to the State Security officers and they informed the desperate woman that her son had been taken to the offices of the National Revolutionary Police.

They told her at the police unit that her son Radames was being held incomunicado and that they would not deliver any family care package to him because he was going to be tried for contempt to the person of the Commandant in Chief. (Fidel)

The political police has already taken off the streets the president of the Jovenes por la Democracia, Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, and now intends to do the same with the vice-president. It seems that the government doesn't forgive the project University Students Without Frontiers.

Translated for CubaNet by Lourdes Arriete