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Cuba frees nine dissidents but still holds 17 others in crackdown

HAVANA, 23 (AFP) - Cuba released nine detained political dissidents but continued to hold another 17 activists arrested in the largest crackdown on the opposition by President Fidel Castro's communist regime in two years, dissidents said.

The nine, including the country's most prominent female dissident, Marta Beatriz Roque, were released Saturday morning a day after being rounded up in Cuba's latest move against the island's political opposition.

Roque, a 60-year-old economist, is president of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society, which had organized a protest in front of the French embassy here Friday to demand the release of political prisoners from Cuban jails.

Many of those detained Friday were leading figures in the group.

Pallid and visibly fatigued, Roque remained defiant and called for more protests against the government.

"The way is the street and we are going to use the streets across the country," Roque told foreign reporters in her Havana home.

Opposition groups "are waiting for a new order to launch onto the streets to demand the liberty of our imprisoned brothers," she said.

Another 17 people detained Friday remained in government hands, including such prominent dissidents as Rene Gomez Manzano and Felix Bonne Carcaces, said APCS spokesman Angel Polanco.

The group organized the protest at the French embassy, they said, because the dissidents had been excluded from joining the embassy's July 14 Bastille Day celebrations.

Meanwhile Cuban government officials were invited to the events, symbolizing the recent normalization of relations between the two governments.

On Saturday Francoise Hostalier, a French human rights advocate, encouraged Paris to press Cuba to free the remaining jailed dissidents.

"France is directly involved in these detentions," she said.

Vladimiro Roca, member of the opposition group Todos Unidos, said the government was nervous about increasing disquiet among the Cuban people over the weak economy, power outages and food shortages in advance of the country's July 26 national day festival.

"The social tension is climbing. The government is tense, even moreso because the main ceremony on July 26 - the day of the National Revolution - will be in Havana," said Roca.

The roundup of dissidents was the second this month. About 30 people were arrested in Havana on July 13 during a demonstration commemorating the drowning death in 1994 of 41 people who were trying to flee Cuba by boat. Six of the 30 are still behind bars, dissident sources said.

The roundups were the largest sweep since 2003, when the government jailed 75 members of the opposition.

Roque, founder of the APCS and the only woman among the 75, was sentenced at the time to 20 years in prison.

She was released for health reasons one year ago, suffering from diabetes, hypertension and partial paralysis of the face. She had already spent three years in jail between 1997 and 2000.

Elizardo Sanchez, president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, called the arrests Friday "absolutely arbitrary" and a "flagrant violation of human rights."

In Washington, the United States also condemned the crackdown.

"Their only crime was attempting to exercise their basic human rights and freedoms," said Adam Ereli, the State Department's deputy spokesman.

"We call on the Cuban government to end this deplorable repression and immediately free all of those arrested. We urge other countries to join us in condemning these acts," Ereli added.

3 Cuban Dissidents Released After Roundup

By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer. July 23, 2005.

HAVANA - Cuba's top woman opposition leader and at least two other dissidents were released Saturday, one day after they and more than a dozen other opponents were detained in an apparent effort to quell an anti-government protest.

Martha Beatriz Roque, known internationally for her organization of an unprecedented mass meeting of dissidents here in May, was released before dawn Saturday.

A government opponent for more than a decade, Roque spearheaded the highly publicized meeting of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society that drew about 200 dissidents on May 20.

At the time, dissidents and observers expressed surprise that Fidel Castro's government even allowed the meeting to be held. Several European lawmakers, dissidents and other observers who had hoped to attend were expelled.

"All members of the assembly agree on going into the streets," Roque said after her release. She added that she would continue her opposition activities.

Two other women detained in Friday's roundup were also released Saturday, said Elizardo Sanchez, a longtime rights activist.

Cuba's communist government has not commented on Friday's detention of as many as 20 dissidents who had planned to attend a protest that day outside the French Embassy.

The roundup was criticized Saturday by the U.S. State Department, which said the dissidents' only crime "was attempting to exercise their basic human rights and freedoms."

"We call on the Cuban government to end this deplorable repression and immediately free all of those arrested," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement.

By midday Saturday, those who still remained in custody included Rene Gomez Manzano and Felix Bonne, two other veteran dissidents who helped Roque organize the May assembly meeting in Bonne's back yard.

Sanchez, of the non-governmental Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said up to 20 dissidents were detained Friday after chanting government supporters helped break up a protest they had planned outside the diplomatic mission.

Roque and others had been expected at the Friday morning protest outside the embassy, but she never showed and her whereabouts were unknown until Sanchez confirmed she and the others were detained.

Just a dozen dissidents showed for the morning protest to demand the release of political prisoners, far fewer than expected.

"Our objective is to demand that the European nations take an interest in the political prisoners of our country," opposition member Adolfo Lazaro Bosk said at the protest.

Sanchez also said government supporters from the dissidents' neighborhoods organized counterprotests around the homes of some, making it impossible for them to leave Friday. In other cases, dissidents planning to attend the protest at the diplomatic mission were visited and warned by state security agents not to go, Sanchez said.

In March 2003, the government arrested 75 independent journalists, opposition politicians, rights activists and others, accusing them of receiving U.S. aid to overthrow Castro's government and sentencing them to long prison terms.

Among those arrested in that earlier crackdown was Roque, who was released a year ago on medical parole.

U.S. authorities have repeatedly rejected charges by the Cuban government that it pays dissidents to help undermine Castro's rule.

New Cuban crackdown nets more than a dozen dissidents

HAVANA, 23 (AFP) - Cuba's most prominent female dissident, Marta Beatriz Roque, and more than a dozen other activists have been arrested in a new crackdown on the opposition by President Fidel Castro's regime, dissidents said.

Roque, a 60-year-old economist, is president of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society, which had organized a protest in front of the French embassy here Friday to demand the release of political prisoners from Cuban jails.

Many of those detained Friday were leading figures in the group.

"She was detained by state security agents shortly after leaving her home. About 20 dissidents have been arrested," said Elizardo Sanchez, president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

He called the arrests "absolutely arbitrary" and a "flagrant violation of human rights."

Roque herself was released hours later, and was at home resting early Saturday, the rights group's spokesman, Angel Polanco, said. Five others also had been released by early Saturday, but 14 of those detained Friday were still behind bars, including such prominent dissidents as Rene Gomez Manzano and Felix Bonne, the spokesman added.

Roque was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2003 but was released for health reasons exactly one year ago, on July 22, 2004, suffering from diabetes, hypertension and partial paralysis of the face. She had already spent three years in jail between 1997 and 2000.

Roque was the only woman arrested in 2003 in a crackdown that landed 75 dissidents in Cuban prisons. She founded the assembly, which groups some 360 Cuban opposition organizations, shortly before.

The group held its first national assembly in May, bringing 160 delegates from all over Cuba for a two-day meeting near Havana that unfolded without interference from Fidel Castro's regime.

James Cason, the top official at the US Interests Section in Havana, has twice participated in assembly activities, in a sign of the close link between Roque and Washington.

"We have indications that there were other arrests, but we are in the process of trying to verify the information. In most cases, authorities prevented dissidents from leaving their homes," Marco Lopez of the rights committee said earlier.

On Thursday, Roque said by telephone that the decision to demonstrate in front of the French embassy was to show dissidents' displeasure with the normalization of relations between Paris and Havana, which took place a week ago today.

"We will demand the liberation of the (Cuban political) prisoners, and we will show the European Union what happens with dialogue (with the Cuban government)," Roque had warned.

The EU sanctioned Cuba after Castro's regime cracked down on dissidents in 2003, but in January, the EU temporarily suspended the sanctions, and in June, it ratified re-establishment of political dialogue with Havana.

It also ordered a suspension of its practice of inviting Cuban dissidents to national celebrations, saying that, instead, a parallel dialogue should be established with the opposition.

France went one step further last week by inviting Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque to the French embassy's July 14 Bastille Day celebration.

About 30 people were arrested in Havana on July 13 during a demonstration commemorating the drowning death in 1994 of 41 people who were trying to flee Cuba by boat. Six of the 30 are still behind bars, dissident sources said.

US slams communist Cuba for latest crackdown on dissidents 2 hours, 44 minutes ago

WASHINGTON, 23 (AFP) - The United States condemned communist Cuba's authorities for their latest crackdown against dissidents.

"Yesterday, July 22, the Cuban government arrested Rene Gomez Manzano and detained at least a dozen members of the Asamblea para Promover la Sociedad Civil (Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society), including Marta Beatriz Roque, the group's president. Their only crime was attempting to exercise their basic human rights and freedoms," said Adam Ereli, the State Department's deputy spokesman.

Roque, a 60-year-old economist, is president of the assembly, which had organized a protest in front of the French embassy in Havana Friday to demand the release of political prisoners from Cuban jails.

Ereli said "there are also credible reports that the homes of dozens of activists were surrounded by government-sponsored mobs, which used threats and intimidation to prevent members of the Asamblea from joining their colleagues in a peaceful demonstration. Cuban state security officials warned these activists to stay inside and not to leave their homes.

"We call on the Cuban government to end this deplorable repression and immediately free all of those arrested. We urge other countries to join us in condemning these acts," Ereli added.

Castro: I'm Honored to Be Elian's Friend

AP, Friday July 22, 2005.

Cuban President Fidel Castro said in a speech published Friday that he's honored to be a friend of Elian Gonzalez, the boy at the center of an international custody dispute five years ago.

"I have the privilege to be his friend," Castro said Thursday night during Elian's sixth-grade graduation in the coastal city of Cardenas, east of Havana.

The speech was broadcast on state television and published Friday in the Communist Party daily Granma.

Elian, now 11, was the subject of a high-profile legal and ideological battle between his father in Cuba and family members in South Florida, both who claimed custody.

Elian was taken to his relatives in Miami in November 1999 after he was found clinging to an inner tube in the waters off Florida. He was among three people who survived when their boat bound from Cuba to the United States sank.

Elian's mother was among those who perished.

After a seven-month battle, Elian returned with his father to Cuba in June 2000.

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