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Tuberculosis in provincial Havana prison

HAVANA, Cuba, June 30 (Ana Aguililla / www.cubanet.org) – Authorities at the Quivicán Prision in Havana province are x-raying and taking blood samples of prisoners after several cases of tuberculosis were discovered, according to activist Ramón Balsinde.

Balsinde said five prisoners with tuberculosis were recently transferred to the prison hospital of the Combinado del Este Prison in Havana, one of them, Mario Luis Menéndez, reportedly in serious condition.

He said that an undetermined number of prisoners were in quarantine at the Quivicán Prison after tests showed they had tuberculosis

Mother and son on hunger strikes

HAVANA, Cuba, June 29 (Frank Correa / www.cubanet.org) - Isabel Ramos continues her hunger strike in support of her son, Arturo Suárez, a political prisoner who started a hunger strike June 10.

The latest news Suárez’s family received is that he’s in the infirmary of Havana’s Combinado del Este prison.
He started his strike after authorities demanded that he wear a prison uniform for conjugal visits. He has served eight years of a 30-year sentence.

Ramos shortly afterwards started her hunger strike in support of her son and other political prisoners. The walls of her home in Jaimanitas is covered with signs demanding their release.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 24 (Frank Correa / www.cubanet.org) – The government has started to issue new licenses for sales in Havana by the self-employed, provided they’ve reached what Cubans call the “third stage” of life.

However, the government hasn’t specified what the minimum age is. Some people near 50 have been reported requesting the licenses, but it is not known if they received therm.

The vendors are limited to selling artisan works and items made at home. They must give the government 20 percent of their income from the sales.

Gay youths fined for alleged lewdness

HAVANA, Cuba, June 24 (Aliomar Janjaque Chivaz / LGBT Cuba Noticias Hoy, www.cubanet.org) – Seven youths were detained last Sunday at Havana’s Chivo beach apparently because of their sexual orientation.

René Alonso, 18, who reported the detentions, said he was fined 30 pesos for lewdness.

“Some of us resisted being removed from the beach,” he said. “They have no right to remove us just because we’re homosexuals.”

HAVANA, Cuba, June 22 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra / www.cubanet.org) – The provincial court in Holguín last week ratified a prison sentence of five years against José Manuel de la Rosa, a lawyer who is a member of Corriente Agramontista, a group formed by independent lawyers.

De la Rosa was arrested in his home on Nov. 25, 2008 and accused of common crimes, said his mother, Ramona Pérez. His arrest followed an argument with a neighbor, who denounced him to the police.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 22 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra / www.cubanet.org) The government’s Rapid Response Brigade raided the home of independent journalist Pedro Enrique Martínez in Santiago de Cubna province.

Martínez said 18 persons who involved in the and that they removed various sayings of José Martí and Antonio Maceo that were written on the exterior and interior walls of his house.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 22 (Carlos Ríos / www.cubanet.org) – More than 10,000 teenagers joined the Union of Young Communists last week.

The new communists, boys and girls aged 14, were accepted into the organization on June 14, the date commemorating the births of Che Guevara and Antonio Maceo.

To be selected, the youths must have high marks from primary school onwards and participate in political activities which promote the Communist Party. Without membership, acceptance at university is difficult.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 19 (Belinda Salas / www.cubanet.org) - Political prisoner Fabio Prieto Llorente says he was tear-gassed by guards when he complained about conditions at the Guayabo Prison on the Isle of Youth.
Prieto, 47, said in a telephone interview that the tear gas was used when on June 8 when he started to shout at the guards that he wanted the human rights of the prisoners to be respected.
“The tear gas irritated my skin and my eyes and affected my breathing,” he said. “It was one of so many violations that are committed daily in the jails of Cuba.”
Prieto, sentenced to 20 years as one of the Group of 75 in 2003, has been declared a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 19 (Frank Correa / www.cubanet.org) - Pedestrians were surprised early Thursday when bundles of Cuban pesos were thrown from the window of a car being driven at high speed on Havana’s Fifth Avenue.
They scrambled to pick up as many bills as possible, all of them of small denomination.
The reason for the bills being thrown became apparent when they saw a cameraman in a following car film the action.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 18 (Ana Aguililla, www.cubanet.org) - Elizabeth De Regla Alonso Castellanos, responsible for public relations of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic, says two of her children recently suffered discrimination because of her political activities.

She said her daughter, Elizabeth Sissy Paredes Alonso, 17, was denied acceptance in medical school even though she met all the academic and other requirements.

She said her son, Rodolfo Arturo Rafols Alonso, 10, was mistreated and cursed at by his teacher at the “Primero de Mayo” primary school.

She said the news of her daughter’s non-acceptance and the incident with her son occurred on Tuesday.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 18 (Julio Beltrán, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) – Political prisoner Arturo Suárez, serving a 30-year sentence since 1987, declared a hunger strike after refusing to wear a prison uniform for a conjugal visit with his wife.

The conjugal visit was suspended and he was allowed a visit instead by his mother, Isabel Ramos.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 18 (Frank Correa / www.cubanet.org) – Someone threw eggs at the home of Francisco Chaviano, leader of the Agenda for Cuban Transition last Sunday.

Neither Chaviano nor his wife was home at the time, but the incident frightened his older sister, who was there.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 18 (Aliomar Janjaque Chivaz, LGBT Cuba Noticias / www.cubanet.org) – Blogger Amauri Dovodelavilla Torriente, who has a blog dedicated to the fight against HIV/AID, was arrested last weekend in a police round up of some 30 homosexuals in Havana.

“I was arrested at 10 on Saturday morning and released at 2 in the morning Saturday,” said Dovodelavilla Torriente. “When I asked the motive of the arrests, no one responded. It is humiliating and inhumane to be arrested without reason just because one is gay and wants to speak to colleagues in a public place.”

Fire May Be Linked to Power Outages

Havana, Cuba, June 12 (Carlos Ríos / www.cubanet.org) – The fire that burned down a shopping center in East Havana may have been intentionally set, some people here say.
The fire that burned through the Rina shopping center in the Camilo Cienfuegos neighborhood May 29 coincided with a power outage, and, some people say, power company officials had received anonymous threats regarding payback for interruptions in electrical service that had been announced by the government due to “excessive fuel consumption.”
During the period of economic hardship in the early nineties, authorities decreed rolling power outages to save on fuel, and some made use of the blackouts as opportunities to damage or sabotage shopping centers, among other establishments.

Electrical Service Not Enough To Cook With

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, June 12 (Yoel Espinosa / www.cubanet.org) – More than 50 residents of the area around the Santa Clara Air Force base say they haven't been able to cook for two years due to the deficiencies of the electrical service they are provided.
“Ever since they (government authorities) took away kerosene and made us cook with electricity, sometimes it'll be ten o'clock at night and we haven't been able to finish cooking because of the low voltage, the bulbs barely give off light,” said area resident Leticia Vargas.
She also pointed out that the 65 people living in 24 housing units have been getting their electricity since 1980 through a hanging wire going through a single electric meter.
Vargas said residents have complained repeatedly to authorities to no avail.
“A substantial investment that the country is in no condition to make is necessary,” she said is the unvarying response by authorities.

Anti Government Graffiti in Government Building

HAVANA, Cuba, June 15 (Aini Martín / www.cubanet.org) – Anti government graffiti showed up in several public places in Regla and Guanabacoa municipalities June 11.
On the wall of the building housing the local government offices in Regla, someone wrote several phrases derogatory of the government, and at the corner of Maceo and Perdomo Streets someone painted slogans against the revolution.
Police in Guanabacoa detained dissidents Juan Carlos Bous, Santos Rivero and Antuán Clemente in connection with the graffiti, performed handwriting tests and fingerprinted them. They released them by 11 pm that same night.

Emerging Teachers Suspected in Sex Case

ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD, Cuba, June 11 (Lamasiel Gutiérrez, Isla Press / www.cubanet.org) – Two emerging teachers, known only by their first names of Yandri and Orlenis, have been held at the municipal police station since Sunday after several parents complained they had improperly touched their daughters during a camping trip.
The parents said at least two girls, aged 11 and 12, complained after a weekend-long camping trip for 5th and 6th grade students that they had been groped and given liquor to drink.
The students were supposed to interact with nature at the Arenas Negras campground at Bibijagua beach, 8 kilometers from the island capital of Nueva Gerona.
Subsequently, school authorities ordered teachers and students not to comment on the matter.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, June 11 (Bárbara Jiménez / www.cubanet.org) - Ariel Sigler Amaya, a designated prisoner of conscience who was one of the 75 dissidents arrested and imprisoned in 2003, was hospitalized June 5, according to his wife.

Noelia Pedreza said her husband, serving a 20-year sentence, was taken to the Dr. Gustavo Aldereguía Lima hospital in Cienfuegos in a “delicate state” of health.

She said Sigler Amaya asked officials at the Ariza prison to take him to the hospital as he was feeling ill. She said his health has been deteriorating for the past nine months, but she didn’t what his ailments were.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 9 (Aleaga Pesant , www.cubanet.org) –Border guards and national police carried out a roundup last Saturday of fishermen, boaters and divers off the Malecón.

The operation started at 4 p.m. and involved the seizure of fish and the sinking of rafts. Those arrested were taken to a police station, where fines of up to 1,500 pesos, the equivalent of more than three monthly salaries for the average Cuba, were meted out.

A source related the roundup to the coming ashore last week of rafters on the coast near the U.S. Interests Section. That incident resulted in police swarming the area.

Under Cuban law, fishermen need government permission to fish and to build boats or rafts from which to fish.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 8 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) – The dissident Foundation for Freedom of Expression (Fundación por la Libertad de Expresión) yas announced the winners of its 2009 awards.

Independent journalist Lucas Garve, who established the awards six years ago, named the following winners: independent journalist Jorge Olivera Castillo for “his commitment to the defense of freedom of expression in Cuba,” Periódico Consenso, “for its quality and efforts to reach a professional level;” and Semanario Primavera, a blog, for its contribution to the development of a free press.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 8 (Juan Carlos González / www.cubanet.org) – Thirty evangelical pastors were arrested last week by State Security agents and members of the National Police in Santa Cruz del Sur, Camagüey, preventing them from holding a convention.

Several of the pastors called the dissident Council of Human Rights of Cuba, asking that news of the arrests be made known.

“The world should know that the Cuban government continues to pursue Christians,” said Bernardo de Quesada Salomón, leader of the group. “The only thing we’re doing is getting together 200 pastors to praise God.”

HAVANA, Cuba, June 8 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra / www.cubanet.org) – Two persons died after some 100 became sick and were hospitalized June 1 after eating bad cheese sold in Güines in Havana province, according to reports.

According to human rights activists, the dead included a minor. Julián E. Martínez, secretary of the Pro Human Rights party, “The Leopoldito Martínez hospital is full of poisoned people and many have been sent to hospitals in the capital because of the state of their health.”

HAVANA, Cuba, June 3 de junio (Roberto de Jesús Guerra, CIHPRESS / www.cubanet.org) – Independent journalist Julio Aleaga Pesant was detained by State Security last week and questioned about his participation in a videoconference journalism course at the U.S. Interests Section .

Aleaga was stopped May 29 as he dropped off his young son at school. He was released more than three hours later.

Besides being questioned about the course given by the International Media Center at Florida International University, Aleaga was asked about upcoming elections in the dissident Liberal Party of the Republic of Cuba.

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, June 3 (José Ramón Pupo, Holguín Press / www.cubanet.org) –Prisoner of conscience Alfredo Domínguez was placed in solitary confinement after protesting demands made of him, according to his wife, Melba Santana, who said he’s now on a hunger strike.

“Alfredo declared himself on a hunger strike to protest this outrage,” she said, adding that political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer joined her husband in the strike, which began May 29 .

She said Domínguez was placed in the cell after protesting requirements made by jailers, which she did not specify. She said the cell was surrounded by dirty water and rats and insects were jumping about.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 2 (Ana Aguililla / www.cubanet.org) – Human rights activist Osmany Fuentes and four other prisoners at the Kilo 8 prison in Camagüey started a hunger strike May 20, according to a report from the prison.

The prisoners are demanding better medical treatment, religious attention, the right to call family members and transfers to prisons in their home provinces.

The other hunger strikers were identified as Nelson Vázquez, Silvio Valdés, Yerandi Reyes and Ángel García.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 1 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra / www.cubanet.org) – The National Police Force staged a series of raids last week in the capital, arresting dozens of youths, among them homosexuals and prostitutes.

The police asked for indentify cards from those walking around in places such as Vedado and the Malecón. Some of those stopped were taken to police stations for questioning.

"These raids take place almost daily against young blacks, whites and Orientals,” said Oswaldo Paya, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 1 (Juan Carlos González / www.cubanet.org) – Various protestant preachers were arrested last week in the province of Las Tunas y Camagüey and threatened with jail on charges of being a “social danger,” to society, said one of them, Luis Yoel Barbuena.

Barbuena said the police chief in the area where he lives came several times to his home and told him he could be jailed for four years for evangelizing and using audio equipment without a license. He said he preaches in his own home, not in a church.

He said Pastor Bernardo de Quesada and his wife, Damaris Machín, were arrested on the highway to Santa Cruz del Sur when they tried to go to Camagüey for the trial of a dissident.

Pastors Tomasa Victoria Ayala and Jorge Zellero said they lost their livelihood when police closed the carpenter shop which they operated on their own.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 1 (Laritza Diversent, www.cubanet.org) –The government is reducing the quantity of food available at subsidized prices under rationing books.

The quota for black beans, currently 10 ounces per person per month, will be cut to five.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 29 (Ana Aguililla / www.cubanet.org) – Two State Security agents detained independent journalist Carlos Serpa on Monday, taking him to the Zulueta Street police station for questioning.

Serpa said he was detained because State Security knew that he was going to report on a protest march by former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as “Antúnez.”

Serpa said he was warned that he would be sent back to the Isle of Youth, where he has his official residence, if he continues reporting on opposition activities.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 28 (Frank Correa / www.cubanet.org) - Two independent journalists were detained separately by State Security agents after attending a workshop last week at the U.S. Interests Section.

David Águila was stopped by two agents at 3:30 p.m. on May 21 and taken to a nearby park where he was questioned and released. The agents took a copy of El Nuevo Herald of Miami that he was carrying as well as some papers.

An hour later, Reinier Vera was detained by agents who took him to the police station in Párraga for questioning. The police said they were planning a “pretty surprise on graduation day” for the journalists.

Águila and Vera had attended a videoconference workshop given by the International Media Center of Florida International University in Miami.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 28 (Luis Cino / www.cubanet.org) – A police cruiser struck independent journalist Odelín Alfonso and his wife on Tuesday, but she said she didn’t think it was intentional.

Chief of police Lt. Michael Hodelín witnessed the accident, which occurred in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón at 10:40 a.m. when the driver of the cruiser apparently lost control of the vehicle. The couple was not injured.

“I don’t think there was any intent on the part of the driver, who lost control because he was driving too fast,” said Alfonso’s wife, Yaquelin Cutiño.

When police asked Alonso for his identify card, he refused to show it, saying, “Arrest me.” He was placed in the cruiser that hit him, but the police chief ordered his release, and he left with his wife.

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, May 28 (Yudelmis Fonseca / www.cubanet.org) – Liliana Morfi, 21, said she was fired from her job as clerk in a government store because of her membership in three dissident organizations.

Morfi says she has lost all of her jobs because of her political activity. “Last May 15 they kicked me out of La Viajera bodega,” she said.

She belongs to the Municipal Democratic Circles of Cuba ( Círculos Democráticos Municipales de Cuba) and the Rosa Parks Feminine Movement (Movimiento Femenino Rosa Parks) and the Cuban Foundation of Human Rights (Fundación Cubana de Derechos Humanos.

ISLE OF YOUTH, Cuba, May 28 (Clara Lourdes Prieto / www.cubanet.org) – Prisoner of conscience Fabio Prieto says he refused his hour of freedom last week in protest over his treatment at the Guayabo Prison on the Isle of Youth.

Prieto was among 75 arrested and sentenced in 2003 for anti-government activities. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.

Journalist Arrested

Havana, Cuba. May 21 (Georgina Noa / www.cubanet.org) – Independent journalist Julio Beltrán was arrested at home May 18 by two officers of the political police as he was preparing to go out.
The officers took Beltrán to the Playa municipality police station where they questioned him. Beltrán said they warned him if he persisted in his counterrevolutionary activities he would be charged and end up in prison.
The officers set him free at 4:30 in the afternoon, Beltrán said.

Cuban Capitol Is 80 Years Old

Havana, Cuba. May 21 (Lucas Garve, Fundación por la Libertad de Expresión / www.cubanet.org) – The Cuban Capitol, inaugurated May 20, 1929, is 80 years old.
The former legislative seat now houses the Ministry of Science and the Environment. The ornate structure is also a tourist attraction, housing as it does the world's third largest indoor statue and the so-called “Capitol Diamond”, a diamond set into the floor that marks milepost zero of Cuba's Central Highway.
The statue represents the Cuban Republic and was sculpted by Angelo Fallini in Italy. For years the building was the tallest structure in the Cuban capital. It is a smaller-scale replica of the Capitol in the U. S. capital and was built by local craftsmen and professionals.
Before the present government came to power in 1959, the building was the seat of the Cuban legislature; its two main halls, locally called “hemicycles”, housed the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives.

Provincial Hospital Deteriorating

Santa Clara, Cuba. May 19 (Yesmy Elena Mena / www.cubanet.org) – The Celestino Hernández Robau provincial hospital in Villa Clara is deteriorating by the day, said government opponent Yoel Mariano Bencomo, who pointed out the facility's failings.
According to Bencomo, the hospital is infested with vermin. “The bathrooms are filthy and leaky, the doors and windows are broken, the matresses are in poor condition and missing covers, the bed sheets are stained, and the food is poorly made and low in protein.”
Bencomo said that it is difficult for patients' relatives to obtain information and that they had complained about delays in the ambulance service and about the lack of medical specialists.

No Dentist For 2,000 Prison Inmates

Ranchuelo, Cuba. May 19 (Félix Reyes, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) -
The 2,000 inmates of Ariza prison in Cienfuegos have been without dental services for two months.
Humberto Becerra, a political prisoner, said that since March 20 inmates have not had access to dental services because the dentist, authorities told them, is on vacation. But a prison guard told a group of prisoners that the real reason is that the dentist shipped out to Venezuela in “international service.”
The lack of dental services led inmate Osvelis Medina to pull his own tooth with a guitar string.

Cuban Free Press in Mortal Danger

Lázaro González Valdés

The news couldn't be worse. “Cubanet is going through a difficult economic situation that could imperil its very survival”, said the article published by the staff at the non-profit organization.

MIAMI, Florida, may, (www.cubanet.org) -The news couldn't be worse. “Cubanet is going through a difficult economic situation that could imperil its very survival”, said the article published by the staff at the non-profit organization.

But we must not allow Cubanet to die for many reasons.

Coffee Peddlers Go AWOL

Santa Clara, Cuba. May 18. (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – The illegal peddlers who usually hawk coffee in the streets of the provincial capital of Santa Clara have been gone for three weeks now. The reason? No beans to sell.
Police have set up check points on the roads leading into the city from Manicaragua and Báez, effectively stopping transportation of the coffee from the Escambray mountains, where it is grown.
Police have also been searching passengers arriving by train from the eastern provinces. As a result, supplies of coffee have all but dried up in the city, at least at a price that would allow the illegal peddlers to compete.
An old lady who said her name is Eumelia who usually sells coffee around La Chirusa neighborhood said: “Things are tough with coffee, because they are not allowing it to come down from the hills, and if you are going to buy it at the dollar stores, you'll go broke.”

Independent journalist struck by motorcycle

HAVANA, Cuba, May 15 (Ana Aguililla / www.cubanet.org) - Independent journalist Frank Correa was hit by a Susuki motorcycle like those used by State Security agents.
The driver of the motorcycle accused Correa of causing the accident.
The driver of an American car who witnessed the accident stopped and offered to take Correa to a hospital, but the journalist declined medical attention. He suffered light injuries to his left ankle and right hand.
“Thrown to the ground and a bit groggy,” Correa said, adding the driver of the motorcycle could have been a State Security agent since they use Susukis.
The motorcycle suffered a broken headlight.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 14 (Julio Beltrán, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) – Members of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women (FLAMUR) ate and drank at El Piropo in Havana’s exclusive Vedado district, and refused to pay the bill in hard currency, the only banknotes the restaurant accepts.

When the group offered pesos, part of its “With the Same Money” campaign, the waiter said, “This is a hard currency establishment. You know this money has no value here.”

When he realized the group wouldn’t pay in hard currency, he accepted the pesos and told them never to return.

The group consisted of members Niurka Caridad Ortega and Magaly Urrutia and sympathizer Oscar Sierra.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 13 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra / www.cubanet.org) - Lázaro Melanio Vidal Hernández, a member of the Democratic Pacifist Line Movement, was recently sentenced to one year of forced labor for selling home-made candies, according to the dissident party’s president, Rodolfo Ramirez Cardoso.

Ramirez said Vidal Hernández was obliged to sell the candies in order to support his family. He said he will serve the sentence at the Amistad Cuba-Corea farm in Bejucal, Havana province.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 12 (Tania Maceda / www.cubanet.org) - State Security agents have been arresting dissidents following raids on their homes in Baracoa, Guantánamo province.

The latest detentions were those of Keiber Rodríguez and Rolando Rodríguez and Rodríguez’s brother Néstor. They were taken to the Centro de Instrucción Policial de Guantánamo.

On May 1, dissidents Roberto González and Francisco Luis Manzané were arrested at their homes, according to human rights activist Carlos Manuel Hernández.

Keiber Rodríguez is a president of the Juan Pablo II Liberation and Reconciliation Movement. Néstor and Rolando Rodríguez are leaders of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democrcy.

All those detained have been released, but police did not return three cell phones and a computer taken from Rolando Rodríguez’s home.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 12 (Georgina Noa / www.cubanet.org) – Members of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women are continuing their campaign to be able to pay with Cuban pesos in hard currency establishments.

Their “With the Same Currency” (Con la misma moneda) campaign has been operating from east to west in Cuba. The latest target was the Conejito restaurant in Havana’s Vedado district where three men, Fernando Lezcano, Reinier Montano and Victor Alejandro Rodríguez, tried to pay the bill with pesos.

Rodríguez was arrested and held for two hours. He was warned he’d be charged with deceptive practices in the future.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 12 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra / www.cubanet.org) – A group of activists belonging to the February 24 Movement has been arrested in Havana, according to relatives.

Among those arrested were Adeley Álvarez, Omara Álvarez, René Ramón González, Lázaro Martín Souto, Dagoberto Berger, Norberto León Batista, Efraín Ortiz and Juan Guillermo Rosales.

The arrests followed a meeting in Mantilla at the home of Alfredo Fernández, president of the November 30 Movement, where it was agreed to hold a workshop on freedom and democracy.

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, May 12 (Juan Carlos Reyes, Holguín Press / www.cubanet.org) - Former political prisoner Lorenzo García says he started a hunger strike May 5 because of police harassment.

According to García, since the beginning of the year police have been stopping him, citing him and preventing his free movement.

García reached his limit at 1 a.m. on May 5 when a police agent threatened to return him to prison.

Children of independent journalist threatened

HAVANA, Cuba, May 11 (Ana Aguililla Saladrigas, www.cubanet.org) – Political police agents paid a visit to independent journalist Ainí Martín Valero Saturday night during which they hinted something might happen to his young children if he kept up his dissident activities.

Martín Valero said the agents questioned him about his frequent presence at meetings of the Liberal Unit of the Republic of Cuba (Unidad Liberal de la República de Cuba). He said he told them as a journalist he has the right to go to places of professional interest for his work.

He said they suggested in a menacing manner that he keep away from the group and that he could be sentenced to four years in prison if he didn’t. Then the “reminded” him he had two minor children, a threat as other independent journalists have been told their children might be taken away from t hem and placed in institutions for the incorrigible.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 8 (Reinaldo Cosano, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) - Leonel Pérez Fonseca, 33, spent two days in jail in Loma del Tanque, Alamar, for transporting 10 liters of milk.

“They questioned me at the police station about where the milk came from,” Pérez said. “I told the officer but he didn’t believe me. They threatened to charge me with the transportation and illegal sale of milk”

Pérez was released after his wife asked farmer René Alfonso, the 80-year-old owner of the seven cows and two goats that provided the milk, to clear her husband of any wrongdoing. Alfonso told police the milk was for family consumption.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 8 (Reinaldo Cosano, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) – Lifeguard Justo Sánchez, 30, was detained by police this week for allegedly renting umbrellas to tourists at Guanabo Beach.

The charge was dropped on Monday when a search of Sánchez revealed he carried no money and no tourists were at the beach at the time of his detention. Nor were any witnesses to an illegal transaction located.

Sánchez’s grandfather, Bernardino Izquierdo, suggested political motives behind the arrest.

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, May 8 (Yosvani Anzardo / www.cubanet.org) – Funeral home operators say the government has prohibited prayers or any religious act at funerals.

According to the operators, the prohibition is contained in decree that makes no religious distinctions. They say that non-religious observations, such as from brotherhoods, are not permitted either.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 7 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) – Fishermen working for the government’s PESCACUBA are complaining that payment for their catches has been cut in half.

The company announced the reduction in April. The fishermen gave an example of one fish that brought then 1,500 pesos a ton now brings in 800.

One of the fishermen, Osvaldo Nieves, said the fleet of fishing boats is not well maintained. “Some boats have been at anchor for five months because of a shortage of anchors, compasses and motors,” he said. “When the boats are tied up, we don’t get paid.”

HAVANA, Cuba, May 6 (Aini Martín, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) – Merchants in the capital’s commercial zone say some 10 and five peso banknotes they accepted turned out to be counterfeit.

According to some of the affected merchants in the Regla district, the banknotes appeared May 2 and were difficult to detect as counterfeit.

redchnats, the En la zona comercial donde se recoge el depósito de las bodegas, lecherías y puestos de viandas del municipio Regla, se detectó el pasado 2 de mayo una alarmante suma de billetes falsos.

Según los testimonios de las personas afectadas, el dinero falso carece del sello de agua y es difícil de detectar. Las autoridades están tratando de descubrir el origen de las falsificaciones, sin que hasta el momento hayan obtenido resultados satisfactorios

GUANTÁNAMO, Cuba, May 6 (Yosvani Anzardo / www.cubanet.org ) – Three dissidents were detained by police last week in the municipality of Baracoa in Guantánamo province.

The home of the trio, Rolando Rodríguez, Néstor Rodríguez and Keiber Rodríguez, were searched by police.

They said the police confiscated books, a radio, a computer and two pullover sweaters.

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, May 5 (Yosvani Anzardo / www.cubanet.org) –The price of gasoline in Cuba remains at the equivalent of US$4.16 a gallon, a little less than half the monthly salary of the average Cuban.

The government had decreed a price increase following Hurricane Ike last year on grounds that prices were going up worldwide.

Dissident barred from leaving his municipality

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, May 5 (Yosvani Anzardo / www.cubanet.org) – Activist Alejandro Antonio Cervantes was detained by police last week and threatened with a 20-year prison term if he continued anti-government activities.

Cervantes is the regional coordinator in Sibanicú, Camagüey province, of the Committee Against Unfair Treatment.

He said following his detention April 24 police prohibited him from leaving the municipality and said Law 88 would be applied if he continued his activities. An act of warning was issued.

HAVANA. Cuba, May 4 (Moisés Leonardo Rodríguez / www.cubanet.org) - Listeners of Radio Martí in the Mariel municipality of Havana say the government is interfering with the signal 24 hours a day for the first time.

Various listeners throughout the area said the signal had been received with no or little interference until the end of last year.

A man named Rafael, a constant listener to the U.S. government station, said, “They only lessen the interference when there’s a major league baseball game is being broadcast. If it’s broadcasting news or hot commentary it’s impossible to receive the signal. It’s as if the radio is going to break because of the vibrations.”

A neighbor of Rafael’s nicknamed China said, “Wouldn’t it be better to use the money being wasted on interference to instead solve problems like the shortage of water, transportation, damage caused by hurricanes, the shortage of ambulances and other problems we face?”

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, May 4 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Two anti-Castro signs appeared last week on the campus of the Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas (UCI) in Villa Clara.

The signs written by hand were in front of computer rooms on the first and second floors. One said, “Down with the dictatorship of the Castro brothers,” and the other said, “No to the Castro family dynasty.”

Agents from the Interior ministry questioned faculty, students and service workers April 26.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 30 (Miriam Leiva, www.cubanet.org) – Three members of the dissident Ladies in White were attacked by police and private citizens following Sunday’s Mass in Perico, Matanzas province, according to one of them, Alejandrina García de la Riva.

García de la Riva, wife of political prisoner Diosdado Marrero, said she was accompanied by two other relatives of dissidents imprisoned in 2003, Saili Navarro, daughter of Félix Navarro, and Noelia Pedraza, wife of Ariel Sigler Amaya, Damas de Blanco, as well as friends.

She said after Mass in the Perico’s church she and the others were walking through the town’s streets carrying flowers when attacked by a crowd she said was organized by State Security agents, members of the political police and the national police. She said they were pushed and insulted before being able to board a bus at the bus terminal.

She said other Ladies in White in Pedro Betancourt were prevented by police from joining them in Perico.

HAVANA, April 30 (Juan Carlos González / www.cubanet.org) – Protestant minister Tomasa Victoria Ayala said officials from the Justice Ministry showed up at her home last Sunday and prevented her from preaching that day, as well as threatening to remove her from the house.

Ayala said she was put on trial at the beginning of April but that a verdict has not yet been given.

The government does not recognize her sect, the Apostolic International Ministry of Fire and Dynamism because, she said, she does not support it.

Ayala said 20 of her followers would meet Sundays in her house, where she had lived for 29 years and finished buying two years ago.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 29 (Ana Aguililla / www.cubanet.org) – The mother of Luis Campos says her son, serving a 25-year sentence for trying to divert a passenger launch to the United States, is ill but refuses to go to the prison clinic with his hands manacled to his waist.

Gregoria Corrales said her son cannot keep down food, has dizzy spells and blurred vision. She says he refuses to go to the clinic because he would be humiliated before other prisoners if he were manacled.

Campos has served 15 years of his sentence for trying to divert the Havana-Regla launch.

GUANTÁNAMO, Cuba, April 29 (Engor Díaz / www.cubanet.org) – Flyers demanding better treatment for prisoners appeared last week in the Combinado de Guantánamo prison, according to one of the inmates.

Rolando Mazo, a common prisoner, said in a telephone call that troops were brought to the prison April 23 and that several prisoners were taken to isolation cells to be questioned by political police.

Police were said to believe that political prisoners Yordis García and Yordis Fuentes were behind the distribution of the flyers.

He said the flyers demanded an improvement in medical attention and the supply of medicines and better telephone communication.

GUANTÁNAMO, Cuba, April 29 (Engor Díaz / www.cubane.org) - Because of a shortage of space, political prisoner Julián Antonio Monés has been sleeping on the floor since his transfer to the Combinado de Guantánamo last week, according to an inmate.

“There aren’t a sufficient number of beds in the prison so they have people sleeping on the floor,” said Rolando Mazo, a common prisoner.

Monés, president of the Miguel Valdés Tamayo Human Rights Movement, was sentenced last year to three years in prison for anti-government activities.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 27 (Aini Martín Valero, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) – Police in the municipality of Guanabacoa allanó last week raided five homes and seized more than one thousand DVDs which were available for rent.

The police, who said the purpose of the raids was to stamp out DVD piracy, detained the owners of the five homes as well as several messengers. They seized four DVD burners and three computers.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 27 (Belinda Salas / www.cubanet.org) - Rosa Escalona, a member of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women (FLAMUR), was freed last week after spending three months in prison on a charge of disrespect for those in authority.

Escalona was arrested in January after demanding that a public official do something to solve her housing problems since her home was destroyed by a hurricane.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, April 24 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – An Interior Ministry officer told ex-political prisoner Jorge Luis García (Antúnez), currently on a hunger strike, that four dissidents were staying illegally in his home.

Capt. Oleida Cepeda went to Antúnez’s home April 16 to inform him that Tamara Pérez, Diosiris Santana, Ernesto Mederos and Carlos Michael Morales were violating the law by being in his home. They were sympathetic participants in the hunger strike that Antúnez started nearly two months ago in an attempt to get the government to lift travel restrictions imposed on him.

Antúnez was given a citation to appear at the Interior Ministry to explain he violation.

Dissident Francisco Chaviano told Cubanacán Press, “The visit by a captain from the Interior Ministry was a pretext to get Antúnez out of his home and to break the fast. I’m in agreement with Jorge Luis that he shouldn’t go to the [Ministry] office.”

4 dissidents prevented from joining hunger striker

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, April 24 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Four dissidents from Santa Clara have been prevented from joining ex-political prisoner Jorge Luis García (Antúnez), currently on a hunger strike at his home.

Capt. Yuniel Monteagudo of State Security turned back the dissidents, members of the Democratic Solidarity Party and the Liberal Party of Cuba: Yoel Bencomo, Jorge Luís Artiles, Léster Sánchez, and Bárbaro Fraga.

Said Bencomo, “In this country even the right to travel to another municipality in the same province is violated.”

HAVANA, Cuba, April 24 (Ana Aguililla / www.cubanet.org) - Arturo Montgomery, spokesman for the Opposition for a New Republic Movement, says political police detained seven members of the organization at the Santiago de Las Vegas bus station last week.

According to Montgomery, the seven were locked up in a jail cell at police headquarters April 21 and questioned for several hours. He said their fingerprints were taken.

A police official said they were suspected of putting up anti-government posters at various places April 15.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 23 (Juan Carlos González Leiva / www.cubanet.org) – Political prisoner Abel López, held at the Guantánamo provincial prison, says he has been diagnosed with pneumonia, hepatitis B, and kidney problems.

López was sentenced March 16 to six years imprisonment for allegedly attacking prison guards. He made a telephone call from prison April 15.

López belongs to the Muncipal Democratic Circles (Círculos Democráticos Municipales de Cuba) and the Martian Human Rights Resurrection Movement ( Movimiento de Derechos Humanos Resurrección Martiana).

HAVANA, Cuba, April 23 (Juan Carlos González / www.cubanet.org) – Three dissidents protested in front of provincial government offices in Cienfuegos demanding the return of a cell phone seized by police from of one them.

“We gave the authorities a letter explaining the reason for our protest and we will not leave here until we’ve received a satisfactory reply, “said Ricardo Pupo, whose phone was taken.

Pupo said State Security agents have taken two cell phones from him in the past five months in an attempt to prevent him from making calls overseas in defense of human rights in Cuba.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 22 (Víctor Manuel Domínguez, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) –Police arrested a member of an independent union, seized the pedicab he used to earn a living and fined him 250 pesos, about half the average monthly salary in Cuba, for operating without a license.

Carmelo Díaz, president of the Confederation of Independent Workers, said Jesús Cordero had repeatedly sought a license to operate his pedicab.

Cordero was operating in Central Havana when he was detained by two plainclothes policemen.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 22 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, CIHPRESS / www.cubanet.org ) – An independent journalist detained outside the U.S. Interests Section while carrying three copies of Miami’s El Nuevo Herald was tried last week on charges of issuing threats and fined 300 pesos, about half the average monthly salary in Cuba.

During his trial April 16, police said they had arrested Rubén Carty in his home, but he said later he had been arrested on the street and that, besides the newspapers, the police took copies two books banned in Cuba and a copy of a speech given by President Barack Obama.

Only a neighbor, Maria López, was permitted at the one-day closed trial. Carty was not represented by a lawyer. Members of the National Revolutionary Police and State Security were present.

Police agents took photographs of human rights advocates waiting outside the court.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 21 (Aini Martín, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) - Álvaro Yero, an independent journalist associated with the Agencia Libre Asociada, was stabbed in the throat by a female member of the Communist Party who objected to cries for freedom at a musical beach party attended mainly by foreign tourists.

Yero and four companions were at the tourist beach of Playa Hermosa in Guanabo last Sunday when the disk jockey started to sing “Change! Change!” – used by dissidents wanting a change of government – while 50 balloons with the word were launched. Some in the crowd started shouting “Long live human rights,” “End the embargo” and “We want freedom.”

Communist party member Sara Hernández approached Yero with a fork and stabbed him as she shouted “worm,” “traitor” and other anti-dissident words.

Yero and his friends were taken to the police station but released immediately. The officer on duty said the fork wielder was an odd person.

Anti-U.S. remarks prohibited during May 1 celebrations

HAVANA, Cuba, April 21 (Ana Aguililla, www.cubanet.org) –Communist Party officials have told workers and students that anti-American signs and remarks will not be allowed during May 1 celebrations, according to sources.

A government worker in San Antonio de Los Baños, Havana province, said such a message was given to him and his colleagues.

Former political prisoner Tomás Ramos Rodríguez said students at the University of Havana have also been told to watch their remarks and actions.

This would mark the first time that the United States is not attacked May 1 and obviously reflect the President Raúl Castro’s announced willingness to enter into talks with American officials.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 21 (Iván Sañudo, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) – A group of residents in the Regla district of Havana staged a protest Saturday at the government’s Popular Power offices demanding repair of domestic appliances that Fidel Castro urged them to buy as part of his “Energy Revolution.”

HAVANA, Cuba, April 20 (Ricardo Montalbán / www.cubanet.org) – The director of the Democratic Municipal Circles in Banes, Holguín province, Ángel Luis Santiesteban, has been sentenced to six months in prison for illegally purchasing construction equipment.

Human rights advocate Martha Díaz said Sate Security agents allowed several dissidents to witness the trial but that Santiesteban was not allowed a lawyer.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 20 (Tania Maceda / www.cubanet.org) – Dissident Segundo Rey Cabrera, president of the Cuban Human Rights Committee, said in a telephone call that he was continuing the hunger strike he started April 1.

Cabrera said his health is worsening as a result of the hunger strike, which he’s conducting in his home in Sancti Spíritus.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, April 20 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Police in three patrol cars raided a private home in Santa Clara last week in a crackdown on the illegal numbers game, Bolita.

Police searched the home of Marlén Cervera room by room on April 14, seized a list with the names of 28 players and arrested Cervera.

Cervera was given a warning and released after more than five hours of detention.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, April 17 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) –Two dissidents were arrested while heading for the home of dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez, better known as Antúnez, who is on a hunger strike.

Amado Ruiz and Donaida Pérez Ruiz were 100 feet from Antúnez’s home in Placetas when they were stopped by two State Security agents.

According to Elia Rosa Moreno, Ruiz’s wife, the pair was charged with disrespect for authority.

RANCHUELO, Cuba, April 17 (Félix Reyes, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) - A man was arrested and fined 200 pesos last week for hoarding 10 gallons of bleach.

Félix Mena had purchased the bleach April 13 in Santa Clara with the intention of bartering it for rice in Aguada de Pasajeros in Cienfuegos province.

Mena was stopped by a police patrol car and taken to the police station in Ranchuelo.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 15 (Tania Maceda/ www.cubanet.org) - Maikel Bencomo, serving a two-year prison sentence for disrespect for authority, says he was arrested eight times before being tried over a tattoo on his back that said “Down with Fidel.”

Bencomo, 27, is serving his sentence at the Calderón a work camp in Havana province. He was sentenced last year.

Bencom was arrested in Artesima in Pinar del Río province as he was about to depart for Havana to take part in a pacifist demonstration. “The political police have a policy of detaining you so you can’t travel if they learn you’re going to participate in some activity,” he said in a telephone interview. “They cited me, arrested me and threw me in jail.”

He said he was beaten in jail and tried the next day at the municipal court without a lawyer to defend him. “The same agent who beat me told me that if I didn’t remove the tattoo saying ‘Down with Fidel’ they were going to arrest me when I get out of prison and charge me with being a social danger,” he said.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 15 (Miriam Leiva / www.cubanet.org) – Six political prisoners who were scheduled to attend an Easter mass Saturday at the Pinar del Río provincial prison were prevented from doing so because they refused to wear prison uniforms, according to the wife of one of the men.

Arrangements had been made for 15 prisoners, some from other prisons, to attend the ceremony presided over by the Bishop of Pinar del Río, Jorge Enrique Serpa.

Elsa González, wife of Víctor Rolando Arroyo, said her husband and five other prisoners were prevented from attending mass because they refused to wear prison uniforms.

She said the bishop asked to speak to the prisoners, but only one of them, Diosdado González Marrero, was brought in. He was wearing dark pants and a white shirt. Prison officials told the bishop the order to deny entry to the six came from their superiors.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 15 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra- CIHPRESS / www.cubanet.org) – Carlos Alberto Padilla said the body of his 18-year-old son, Luís Alberto Padilla Boach, riddled with 13 bullet holes, was turned over to the family last Sunday after being found at a military facility.

“He was unrecognizable,” said Padilla. “They shot him in the head, the stomach and the feet. We don’t know what happened since my son was not a delinquent and he wasn’t doing his Obligatory Military Service. We don’t know how he ended at the place where he was found because it’s a military unit.”

Padilla said authorities have not given him any explanation for his son’s death.

His body was found at a military facility near the 1580 Prison in the Havana municipality of San Miguel del Padrón.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 15 (Ignacio Estrada Cepero - CIHPRESS / www.cubanet.org) –The Cuban Human Rights Commission that deals with AIDS victims says a prisoner was placed in solitary confinement at the Cerámica Roja Prison in Camagüey after the HIV virus was detected.

The commission advised the Ministry of Public Health on Tuesday about the case of Georbis Matos Pérez, 21. It also protested his confinement to the Ministries of the Interior and Justice.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 14 (Miguel Iturria Savón / www.cubanet.org) – The wife of political prisoner Juan A. Bermúdez, serving a four-year sentence, says he husband started a hunger strike April 6.

Neris Castillo said he husband declared the strike after being put in solitary confinement for protesting the beating of a prisoner by three guards at the Pre jail in Santa Clara.

Bermúdez, vice president of the Cuban Human Rights Committee, was sentenced November 21, 2007 for anti-government activities.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, April 13 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – A police agent fined Ariel Suárez, regional coordinator of the Democratic Solidarity Party, 1,000 pesos for allegedly stealing over 200 pounds of white sugar from a warehouse at the government’s agroindustrial complex where he works.

At a meeting with officials of the Ciudad Caracas complex and police, Suárez denied the charge, saying he had never left his post on the day of the alleged theft.

When police officer Fidel Yanes wrote out the fine, the equivalent of about three months of average salary, Suárez refused to sign the document.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, April 13 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – There are more than a dozen cases of tuberculosis at the José Luis Miranda children’s hospital in Santa Clara, according to sources at the province’s Medical College.

“The official press at no time has alluded to this outbreak because, without doubt, they have orders from above to hide what is happening, “said an orthopedic specialist.

Public health workers and others who have been in direct contact with the tuberculosis patients have been given vaccinations.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 10 (Belinda Salas / www.cubanet.org) - Magaly Norvis Otero, an activist of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women (FLAMUR), says she was threatened in her home this week by two political policemen because of her participation in a campaign against the forced use of foreign currencies.

Norvis Otero said the policemen came Monday morning and warned her there would be serious consequences if she continued her campaign. “I told the officials that with our actions were demanding the right of all Cubans, including them, to pay in Cuban currency at all establishments in the country, and that there is a citizens’ petition to which the government has not given a reply,” she said.

Along with seven other activists, Norvis Otero went to the Piropo resuarant April 1 where they insisted on paying in Cuban pesos and not a foreign currency, an action or whciht hey were fined. They refused to pay the fines.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 10 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, Hablemos Press / www.cubanet.org) – Dissident Segundo Rey Cabrera González says he was told by ETECSA, the telephone company, that a mobile phone service could be seized if used for immoral or anti-government purposes.

Cabrera, president of the Cuban Human Rights Committee, said the warning was given to him and José Ramón Borges Serrano by an employee when they went to the phone company office in Sancti Spíritus.

“The woman who attended top us in the office of ETECSA told us that the there is a clause in the contract for mobile phones that says when there is use that is ‘contrary to the morals, sovereignty or security of the Cuban state’ ETECSA can take back the phone,” Cabrera said.

Police seized Cabrera’s phone when he went to Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba provinces to promote civil society activities.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 10 (Reinaldo Cosano, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) – Guillermo Antonio Figueredo , a member of the Victoria Independent Works Union in Las Tunas province, said State Security agent Jaime Matos detained, questioned and threatened him at police headquarters.

Figueredo, 36, said he was threatened with the loss of his job and expulsion from university, where he is studying epidemiology, if he continued union activities.

Figueredo is a health inspector with the Ministry of Public Health in the municipality of Manatí

CAMAGUEY, Cuba, April 9 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra, www.cubanet.org) – Imprisoned independent journalist Jorge Alberto Liriano Linares was placed in solitary confinement at the Cerámica Roja prison and beaten by guards, according to a telephone call made Wednesday by common prisoner Lázaro Molina.

Molina said the guards had seized writings made by Liriano Linares of injustices occurring in the prison.

Molina made the remarks to Centro de Información Hablemos Press (CIPRESS), one of the independent new agencies in Cuba.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 9 (Juan Carlos González (www.cubanet.org) – Human rights defender Rey Cabrera says he is on a hunger strike at his home in an attempt to get authorities to return his cell phone and video camera and allow him free movement within Cuba.

Cabrera, 45, sent out word that he has only taken a daily glass of water and no food for the past six days. He said State Security agents will have to remove his body from his home in Sancti Spiritus unless his demands are met.

Cabrera, president of the Cuba Human Rights Committee, was arrested several times last month and had his phone and camera taken on one of the occasions.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 9 (Álvaro Yero / www.cubanet.org) – State Security agents backed by police and rapid response brigades prevented human rights advocates from entering the home of former political prisoner Emilio Leyva for a study session last week.

A total of 36 agents and police were stationed at street corners from 6:30 a.m. onwards April 2 to prevent anyone from reaching Leyva’s home.

The purpose of the meeting was to attend a class given by Alfredo Vallín, president of the Cuban Juridical Association, on the constitution and penal code of Cuba.

HAVANA, Cuba, April 9 (Álvaro Yero / www.cubanet.org) – Independent journalist Olienny Valladares says he was prevented from attending an activity associated with a Political Prisoner Congress held in Miami last week.

Valladares said in a telephone interview that he was taken to a National Revolutionary Police station by the local chief and two other officers April 3.

He said he was told he could not leave his home and to try and so would result in his imprisonment. He said a file was opened on him as a “danger to society” and he was threatened with a four-year prison term.

Lift the Cuba Embargo?
By Humberto (Bert) Corzo*

“It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”. Fidel Castro

(Excerpt from the book “Fidel Castro and Human Rights”, Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988)

HAVANA, Cuba, April 7 (Aini Martín, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) – Independent journalist Álvaro Yero says he was beaten on Sunday by State Security agents as he was going to be a meeting dissidents – and he has a bruised face and broken nose to prove it.

Yero and two companions were approaching the home of Liviod Fernández when they were detained and taken away in three police cars. They were going to participate in activities associated with a congress of former political prisoners being held in the United States.

According to Yero, he was taken to an area adjoining Lenin Park where an unidentified official beat him up.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, April 7 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Polive arrested a student named Ángel Peai on charges of activities against the government.

According to Peai’s mother, Amilet Marrero, her son’s arrest arrested followed an argument between him and police agent Dennis Gilart over a personal matter during which she said her son was beaten.

The agent called for reinforcements and Peai was taken to the Cimarrones police station in Santiago de Cuba.

His mother said her son supported the revolution and had never before had problems with authorities.

Baseball player dropped by team for political reasons

Félix Reyes

Ranchuelo, Cuba. April 3. (CubaNet) – Yorky la Rosa, one of the starters for the Villa Clara team in the Cuban baseball league was dropped by the team, presumably for political reasons, according to a resolution handed down March 27 in Santa Clara.

Sports writer and commentator Normando Hernández explained over provincial radio station CMHW: “Our ball players must be partisans of the Revolution, and they must be unconditionally loyal to Fidel and Raúl; otherwise Cuban fans, who are partisans of the Revolution, don't want to see them play.”

La Rosa, a left fielder and designated hitter for the team, is said to have wanted to remain on the team, but was dropped on the orders of José Luis Rabel, lieutenant colonel of the Department of State Security in charge of sports at the national level, presumably because La Rosa had been making arrangements to visit his wife who lives in Spain.

Police Target Street Racing

Leafar Pérez

Havana, Cuba. April 1. (CubaNet) – A concerted raid by police and officers of the Technical Investigations Department (DTI) the night of March 27 resulted in the arrest of at least 20 drivers and the confiscation of several cars and motorcycles.

Edilberto Rodríguez said he witnessed the arrests of the racers along the Avenida de Rancho Boyeros, between Santa Catalina and Avenida Camagüey.

The late night races along deserted streets have been going on for years. Many here believe authorities have not curbed them because those involved are often the children of Communist party and government officials.

Conga Line Follows Funeral of Dance Troupe Founder

Aini Martín

Havana, Cuba. March 30 (CubaNet) – You could say Alberto Mir came home to die, and the dance troupe he founded and represented for years gave him a suitable send off, playing and dancing behind his funeral procession all the way to the cemetery.
Mir, the founder of the “comparsa” Los Guaracheros de Regla, had lately been living in Mexico, where he acted as the troupe's agent. He arrived in Havana March 25, and died the next day after suffering a respiratory arrest.
A comparsa is a group of musicians and dancers who come together, primarily at carnival time, to perform as a marching troupe in the streets, the sort of thing one associates with Carnival in Rio, or for that matter, in Havana.
By Mir's wish, his comparsa, costumes and all, led the townspeople of Regla, the town across the bay from Havana proper, in his funeral parade.

Several Families Evicted in Urban Renewal Drive

José Ramón Pupo Nieves

Holguín, Cuba. March 30. (CubaNet) – Several families were evicted from their makeshift houses in the eastern Cuban city of Holguín in an apparent attempt to erradicate a whole community of about 80 such lodgings erected catch-as-catch-can with mostly found materials.
A small task force consisting of police, ambulances from the public health department and municipal services trucks went to work early on March 25 behind the cigarrette factory that lies between Villa Nueva and La Aduana in the outskirts of the city.
They quickly established a routine, evicting the settlers, removing their meager belongings, and quickly dismantling the structures the residents had precariously put together with cardboard, wood, plastic and any other materials they had been able to scavenge and recycle.
And they were doing well, having gone through eight houses in short order, until they came to Felix's.
Because Felix had been either luckier or more enterprising than his neighbors, and had build his shack mostly out of brick.
Felix later complained his family's belongings had been taken to a warehouse some 20 kilometers away, and left there with no security whatsoever

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, March 27 (María Antonia Hidalgo, Holguín Press / www.cubanet.org) - Police detained dissident Arnaldo Expósito last week and abandoned him in a rural area after questioning him.

According to Expósito, he was going downtown March 20 in a horse-drawn carriage when he was stopped by police. He said he shouted “Freedom for Cuba” and “Down with the Castro dictatorship” as he was being placed in a police cruiser.

He said he was questioned for 12 hours at the police station and then taken to a rural area known as Los Angeles, where he was dropped off. He said he was beaten to the ground and told he had to stop his opposition to the government.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 27 de (Aleaga Pesant / www.cubanet.org) – The Cuban Citizens Committee, based in Santiago de Cuba, has asked U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki to use diplomatic means to obtain the release of independent journalists imprisoned since March 18, 2003 when the government cracked down on dissidents.

The appeal was made in a letter signed by Guillermo Espinosa, who has been held under house arrest because of his dissident activities.

The letter said Cuban President Raúl Castro has not fulfilled promises of change and is not obeying Human Rights agreements to which Cuba is a signatory.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 27 (Julio Beltrán, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) - A group of dissident women protested against the government last week by refusing to pay the bill in hard currency at a restaurant that does not accept Cuban pesos.

The women were members of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women and other opposition groups.

The waiter at the outlet of the Di-tu fast-food chain initially refused to accept the pesos March 20 but relented when he realized the women were not going to pay in U.S. dollars or another hard currency. “I hope these are worth something here,” the waiter said, referring to the pesos.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, March 27 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press, www.cubanet.org / Sugar-cane workers at the Palmar plantation in Santa Isabel de las Lajas, Cienfuegos province, have protested management’s decision o increase the work day to 24 hours worked in two shifts.

Workers said their salaries are already low, they’re not supplied with gloves and there is little lighting at night, which can lead to accidents.

Worker Gustavo Pérez said plantation administrator manager Ariel de los Santos wants to increase production.

HAVANA, March 25 (Álvaro Yero / www.cubanet.org) – Students taking a computer course have been complaining that the professors don’t have access to the Internet in the classroom.

According to students at the Joven Club de Computación y Electrónica, the professors only have access to a local network and not the Internet.

“How can you teach something without being able to put it into practice?” asked a student named Ricardo.

The director of a Joven Club in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo said all of the clubs follow the same method: the professor has Internet access to develop the course but not in the classroom.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 24 (Asela Vega / www.cubanet.org) – More than 30 dissidents went to five police stations in the capital on the anniversary of the arrest of the Group of 75 and asked that they be imprisoned themselves in an act of solidarity.

One of them, Dr. Darsi Ferrer, said the police at the Aguilera station knew beforehand of their planned activity March 18. “But they didn’t try to stop us,” he said. “On the contrary, they tried to avoid a scandal.”

Ferrer said that five of them spent several hours in front of the station. “That was the least we could do for our imprisoned brothers,” he said.

Most of the 75 remain imprisoned, serving sentences of up to 28 years for anti-government protests and other activities. They include independent jounrlaists and librarians.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 23 (Aleaga Pesant / www.cubanet.org) - Political police in Santiago de Cuba detained for more than eight hours last week various dissidents and human rights advocates.

Among those detained was Guillermo Espinosa, who supports the Center of Applied Marketing and Political Publicity (Centro de Aplicación de Marketing y Publicidad Política) in Santiago de Cuba. Following his detention March 15 he was placed under house arrest

Police Palma Soriano detained Raudel Ávila, provincial delegate of the dissident Workers Confederation of Cuba (Confederación Obrera de Cuba).

According to Ávila, the detentions were in response to activities in eastern Cuba marking the sixth anniversary of the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of 75 in what has become known as the Black Spring of 2003.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, March 20 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – A government fish plant in Playa Victoria advised former political prisoner Rolando Ferrer that he was turned down for employment because he was not considered “trustworthy.”

When the Empresa de Acopio de la Pesca advised Ferrer March 15 that his job application was being denied, he sought an appointment with the human resources to find out why. He was told the Interior Ministry had determined he was not “trustworthy” because he had been imprisoned for anti-revolutionary activities.

He had been imprisoned in 2001 on charges of making public information affecting Cuba’s national security.

RANCHUELO, Cuba, March 20 (Félix Reyes, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) - Anti-Castro epithets appeared on the walls of the Alambrada de Manacas jail last week, prompting the questioning of eight prisoners.

One of the suspected prisoners named Rivera said in a telephone call that epithets saving “Down with Fidel” appeared in the dining room and were seen by many inmates.

River and seven other prisoners were taken to State Security headquarters in Santa Clara for questioning.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, March 19 (Yoel Espinosa / www.cubanet.org) – Police raided a clandestine cock fight, illegal in Cuba, and arrested 48 people last weekend, most of them owners.

Some 60 police officers, backed by patrol cars and paddy wagons, swooped in one the fight that took place near a factory on the outskirts of Santa Clara.

Carlos Díaz, an owner of a fighting cock, said police fired shots into the air as bettors and owners fled, leaving behind cars, bicycles and horse-drawn carriages.

He said those arrested were taken to police stations in the city and were fined and given warnings about future participation in cock fights.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, March 19 (Yoel Espinosa / www.cubanet.org) – The pasteurization plant in Santa Clara was closed last week because of a leak in the cooling system.

The escape of ammonia prompted the plant to halt all production of milk, yogurt, butter, cheese and ice cream, said plant manager Pablo Fernández.

Fresh milk sold under the ration book was replaced by powdered milk for those children under seven. Those from seven to 14 received a mixture of powdered milk, chocolate and sugar.

The plant supplies residents of Santa Clara, Manicaragua, Ranchuelo and Santo Domingo.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 18 (Álvaro Yero / www.cubanet.org) – Dissident Rogelio Hernández was fined 1,000 pesos, the equivalent of about three average monthly salaries, for illegally using a state truck to carry a home-made boat in which he and seven others planned to use to leave Cuba.

Hernández and the others were stopped by the National Revolutionary Police January 5 en route to the beach at Tarará east of Havana.

He was also place under house arrest until his trial on charges of trying to illegally leave the country.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 17 (Tania Maceda / www.cubanet.org) - Independent journalist Normando Hernández, serving a 25-year prison sentence for his anti-government writing, says his health is deteriorating and at times he feels he’s about to die.

Hernández was returned to the Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey at the end of February after spending a month at the Carlos J. Finlay Hospital in Havana. He said none of the promised tests were carried out there.

“I feel so bad that at times I think I’m going to die,” he said in a telephone call March 8. “They didn’t do anything for me and now they’re not even giving me my medicine.

Hernández, 39, suffers from hypertension, intestinal parasites and chronic diarrhea, among other things.

He was among 75 dissidents arrested and sentenced in 2003. He has been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 17 (Iván Sañudo, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) - Yomara Rodríguez, 23, was sentenced last week to four years in prison for “harassing tourists” and prostitution.

She was arrested by two police agents last month in the lobby of Capri Hotel in Vedado after being summoned from the hotel’s night club.

Her arrest and sentencing was the latest in a government campaign against prostitution in Cuba.

Rodríguez confessed to prostitution after being questioned at a police station. She will serve sentence at the Red Flag prison camp in Havana province.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 17 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra / www.cubanet.org) – Independent journalist Reinier Vera was detained by State Security agents last week as he left the U.S. Interests Section after attending a videoconference workshop given by Florida International University.

José Manuel Albares, who also attended the weekly journalism workshop, witnessed the March 11 incident. “Since the new course started they detain someone after the videoconference,” he said. “Last week it was Carlos Ríos.”

ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD, Cuba, March 17 (Lamasiel Gutiérrrez, Isla Press / www.cubanet.org) – lieut. Osmany Chacón, the director of the Guayabo Prison on the Isle of Youth, has forbidden telecasts of the World Baseball Classic, much to the displeasure of the 500 inmates.

Rolando Jiménez, serving a 12-year sentence, said he was placed in solitary confinement for protesting the lack of coverage. “You can’t get the channel that’s transmitting the games,” he said during a family visit.

“This abusive measure has bothered the prisoners who are fed up with the political manipulation to which they submitted on a daily basis,” he said.

Jiménez said the director and other prison officials say the baseball coverage would entertain the prisoners and detract from the “battle of ideas” in classes they have to attend.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 16 (Juan Carlos González Leiva / www.cubanet.org) – Fifteen members of the Central Opposition Coalition (Coalición Central Opositora) (CCO) were arrested in Santa Clara over the weekend when they tried to halt traffic in front of a State Security building in a show of support for protesting hunger strikes.

Among those arrested were coalition president Idania Yanes Contreras and Yesmy Elena Mena Zurbano, Martha Díaz Rondón, Diagzán Saavedra Prat, Félix Reyes Gutiérrez and Ernesto Mederos Arrozarena.

The hunger strikers are seeking the release of political prisoners and Cuban fulfillment of international human rights agreements.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 16 (Tania Maceda / www.cubanet.org) - Wilmer Sánchez has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for shouting anti-Castro epithets and others against a municipal president in Holguín province.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 16 (Juan Carlos González Leiva / www.cubanet.org) - Nelson Curbelo, a member of the Independent Alternative Option Movement, has been imprisoned after being cited by the police March 3 and is on a hunger strike, according to another prisoner.

Eduardo Marcos Pacheco, an imprisoned human rights advocate, said Pacheco has been on a hunger strike for six days at the Combinado del Sur Prison in Matanzas.

According to Pacheco, Curbelo, 48, told him months ago that State Security was after him for his human rights activities.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, March 16 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) Some 250 workers at the Empresa de Comunales in Lajas, Cienfuegos province, went on strike March 10 to protest a proposed salary reduction.

According to worker Omar Suarez, company director Pedro Pablo Monzón told a meeting of workers that salaries were going to be cut by 30 % and a food basket eliminated.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 13 (Reynaldo Cosano Alén, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) - José Carlos Ramos, 29, was arrested on the street after admitting to the local police chief in Perico, Matanzas province, that he was the son of a known dissident.

“The officer went up to Ramos and asked him if he was the son of Rigoberto Ramos,” said Osvaldo Castillo, provincial delegate of the National Independent Works Confederation (CONIC). “Ramos said he was and was immediately arrested and taken to his house where 33 heads of garlic, 20 onions and a box of tomatoes were seized.”

Ramos was fined 500 pesos – a little more than the equivalent of the average monthly salary in Cuba – for selling without a license.

Ramos’s father is an official of the Ángel Cofiño independent union, affiliated with CONIC.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba March 13 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – State Security agents arrested dissidents Idania Yanes, Alejandro Tur and Félix Reyes this week when they were about to leave the city.

Yanes, president of the Central Opposotion Coalition (Coalición Central Opositora), said they were arrested Tuesday as she was leaving her home with Tur and Ramos. She said one of the agents said she and her colleagues were forbidden from traveling to the capital for a meeting of the opposition Transition Agenda group.

Yanes told the agents they were not planning to go to Havana but to Placetas to support three opposition strikers, Jorge Luis García Pérez and Iris and Diosiris Santana.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 11 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) - Damián Alejandro Pereda, 17, lost his job at the Alejo Carpentier printing plant for refusing to inform on his dissident father.

Police captain Alberto Cautín summoned the son in January and demanded he cooperate with State Security against his father, Ramón de Jesús Pereda. When he refused, he was fired from his janitorial job.

Capt. Cautín later threatened to have Damián Pereda tried on charges of being a danger to society, common accusations against dissidents. The captain told members of the block committee in the area where Pereda lives that the son supported the anti-government activities of his father, who has distributed human rights literature and the reports of independent journalists.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 11 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) – Greater police presence and actions against dissidents have been noted in the capital the last few days, presumably because of the upcoming anniversary of the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of 75 dissidents in 2003.

As well, heads of Committees for the Defense of the Revolution have been meeting with their members, retired workers, Communist Party members and military veterans, asking them to be on the lookout for illegal activities. They were told to pay special attention the putting up of anti-government posters.

For its part, State Security has increased its vigilance of opposition groups, cracking down on what it considers to be illegal trips to the city.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 11 (Asela Vega / www.cubanet.org) – Dissident Rafael Ernesto Ávila, president of the Young Cuba Popular Party, was refused permission to attend conferences this month in Athens and Miami at the invitation of the We Care Foundation.

Ávila said that he filled in a request for a passport at the Emigration Office in the capital and was told that he’d be given a reply later.

“I went alternate days to Emigration to see if they’d let me travel and they always told me to return another day,” he said. “On Monday they said: ‘You can’t travel unless you’re leaving for good.’”

Ávila said he had been denied permission in 2000 to attend a conference in Ecuador.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 10 (Víctor Manuel Domínguez, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) – State Security agents picked up Minaldo Ramos, an organizer for the Confederation of Independent Workers, at his home and put him on a bus to an unknown destination after questioning him at the police station, according to dissidient Carmelo Díaz Fernández.

Díaz said Ramos’s detention probably was related to his independent union activities and the fact that anti-government posters were found last Sunday on walls near his home.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 10 (Álvaro Yero / www.cubanet.org) - At least eight self-employed vendors were arrested in a roundup carried out by 30 policemen, according to Armando Carbonell, one of those picked up.

“It was so quick that the people were frightened,” Carbonell said of the raid that took place in La Palma in an area set aside by the state for vendors. “They threw me to the ground as if I was a delinquent.”

Some of the vendors fled but others were arrested and put in a truck for the ride to the police station. If they did not have current licenses to operate, they were fined between 500 and 2,000 pesos, the equivalent of one to four average monthly salaries in Cuba.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 10 (Álvaro Yero / www.cubanet.org) – Dissident Rogelio Hernández has been placed under house arrest pending trial after being intercepted by frontier guards as he tried to leave Cuba by sea.

Hernández said he was held for 72 hours by State Security and questioned before being sent home to await trial.

He said State Security agents threatened him with prison and a fine of 10,000 pesos.

ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD, Cuba, March 9 (Lamasiel Gutiérrez, Isla Press / www.cubanet.org) - The director of the Héroes de Baire Hospital has suspended all surgical operations because of contaminated water in a cistern.

According to the director, Dr. Sonia González, the contamination was discovered February 26.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 9 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) – Independent journalists who participate in a certificate program offered by Florida International University have been warned by State Security agents that they’re defying the government.

The journalists have been detained, searched and had material confiscated as a result of the weekly workshops delivered by videoconference to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana by instructors from FIU’s International Media Center.

Independent journalists who say they’ve been harassed include Heriberto Liranza, Rafael Rodríguez, Omayda Padrón, Mario Hechavarría, Mario José Delgado, Francisco Chaviano, Carlos Ríos and Ariel Ramos.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 6 (Moises Leonardo Rodríguez / www.cubanet.org) - Independent journalist Roberto de Jesús Guerra, accused of putting up anti-government posters, has been freed after four days of detention.

Guerra denied he had put up any posters, telling police he was a journalist. They said that as a journalist he should know who did the posting.

He was arrested March 1 and accused of putting up 11 posters in Central Havana and three in Old Havana.

Guerra said State Security agents questioned him eight times before he was released on Wednesday.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, March 6 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press /
www.cubanet.org) - Political prisoner Pedro Argüelles, 60, has been put in solitary confinement at the Canaleta Prison in Ciego de Ávila province for refusing to wear the same clothing as common criminals.

Fellow prisoner Pablo Pacheco said Argüelles had asked Lt. Col. Reinerio Díaz, head of the prison, that he be placed in the infirmary because he was feeling ill. Pacheco said the colonel told Guerra he’d first have to put on the uniform of a common prisoner, whereupon Argüelles said he was a political prisoner with the right to wear clothing unlike that of common prisoners.

Pacheco said Argüelles was placed in solitary confinement after arguing with the colonel. He has been serving a 20-year sentence since 2003.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, March 4 (Yesmy Elena Mena, Villa Clara Press / www.cubanet.org) – Two women were beaten on a street by four policemen, according to a dissident who said she witnessed the incident.

Regla Anicia Cárdenas, a member of the Cuban Nationalist Civic Movement, said the incident occurred February 21 when the women, identified as Irina Borrero and Ivette Méndez, were passing in front of her window.

She said the police seized seven bottles of vinegar the women were carrying and that the beating occurred when the women protested. The pair was handcuffed and taken to the police station or booking.

HAVANA, Cuba,March 3 (Juan Mario Rodríguez / www.cubanet.org) – State Security agents last week prevented two dissidents from participating in a study group at the headquarters of the Hard Line Front (Frente Línea Dura) movement.

Humberto Martínez and Roberto Arruebo were 150 feet from the headquarters when agents dressed in civilian clothing detained them.

The agents demanded identification and told the pair that the session had been suspended. The study group meets every Thursday.

Two agents then led them away from the immediate area and warned them against participating in future meetings.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 3 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) – Farm and construction workers have been complaining that work boots provided by the government come apart after two weeks of wear.

Workers at the Saturnino Aneiro shoe factory in Morón said the poor quality of the boots is due to the poor quality of the leather and the fact that the machinery used is 30 years ago and in bad conditions.

Víctor Pérez, director of Empresa de Calzado y Cuero, said there’s a similar situation at 10 other shoe plants in Cuba. “We’re working with what is assigned us by the Ministry of Light Industry,” he said.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 3 (Tania Maceda, www.cubanet.org) – Dissident Alejandro Blanco, who was arrested February 14 in Baracoa while protesting against the government in a public park, has been transferred to the Pasos de Cuba Prison in Baracoa.

Blanco, a member of the Young Cubans for Democracy Movement, has been detained many times in the past. He once told the head of the municipal political police, “I don’t know where you Communists are going to go when the government falls. The people are going to look for you under rocks.”

Kéiber Rodríguez, human rights advocate and president of the John Paul II Reconciliation and Peace Movement, said he hopes Blanco will soon be put on trial. He’s accused of attempts against the government and faces a possible five –year sentence.

Humberto Martínez and Roberto Arruebo were 150 feet from the headquarters when agents dressed in civilian clothing detained them.

The agents demanded identification and told the pair that the session had been suspended. The study group meets every Thursday.

Two agents then led them away from the immediate area and warned them against participating in future meetings.

HAVANA, Cuba, March 3 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) – Farm and construction workers have been complaining that work boots provided by the government come apart after two weeks of wear.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, March 2 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Inmate Ignacio Isain was beaten by a re-educator at the Santa Clara Territorial AIDS Prison, according to another prisoner.

Omar Ferreira said Robles asked guards February 22 to use a telephone because he was worried about an ailing relative and it was his to make calls. He said re-educator Sub. Lt. Nelson Gama took a rubber truncheon from a guard and beat Robles, saying, “Shut up! Here we’re the only ones who can give permission.”

Ferreira said Robles asked to be taken to the prison hospital but was placed in solitary confinement instead.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, March 2 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) - Villa Clara team pitcher Juan Yasser Serrano, 19, who was detained for allegedly trying to leave Cuba, has started to train at the local Augusto César Sandino stadium.

Family members accompanied Yasser to a meeting with the Provincial Baseball Commission where they presented a State Security document stating there were no charges pending against the player and no investigation underway. The document said Yasser had been interrogated.

Former trainer Luis Artiles said he was told Cuban baseball authorities have not yet taken a decision on whether Yasser can resume playing.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, February 27 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Three young people were kicked out of a cyber café after entering a Web site of the U.S. government.

Yolanda Alemañi, Leonelsys Ávila and Ramón Herrera entered the Web site of the Ministry of Public Health and from there got on Intranet, the Cuban government network only available in Cuba. From there they entered a Web site of the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba.

When cyber café attendant Adriano Castillo saw the page on the screen, he told the trio they were not allowed to visit U.S. government Web sites.

“I am a revolutionary and I’m not going to allow what you’re doing,” he told them. “Leave immediately or I’m calling the police.” They left.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, February (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – The gravesites of several anti-Communists who were executed or died fighting were restored by dissidents last weekend.

The work was done by ex-political prisoners Jorge Luis Artiles of the Democratic Solidarity Party and Léster Sánchez of the Independent Democratic Front who trimmed the grass and identified the graves.

While they worked, they were observed by agents from, State Security and members of the Association of Fighters for the Cuban Revolution, who did not interfer.

HAVANA, February 27 (Víctor Manuel Domínguez, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) – State Security agents visited the home of the president of the Independent Workers Confederation of Cuba this week and threatened to send him to prison.

The president, Carmelo Díaz, was attending an independent library meeting of poets and writers in his home when the agents arrived Monday.

Two agents indentified as Samuel and Alexei, warned Diaz he’d be imprisoned if he did not resign from the workers confederation and stop creating independent organizations.

RANCHUELO, Cuba, February 27 (Félix Reyes, Cubanacán Press, www.cubanet.org) – Police returned seized floor tiles and cement after the owner went to the police station with receipts to prove she had purchased the material legally.

Police raided the home of Yenistey de la Paz on Monday after receiving an anonymous tip that she had illegal building material. The police carted off dozens of tiles and a sack of cement.

The woman said she was Spanish and had the right to purchase goods in hard currency stores. She returned with the receipts and the police gave back the seized material. She said some of the tiles were missing.

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, February 26 (José Ramón Pupo Nieves – Holguín Press / www.cubanet.org ) – A homage took place Tuesday to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the deaths of four pilots from Brothers to the Rescue whose planes were shot down by the Cuban air force.

The event took place in the home of María Antonia Hidalgo Mir, vicepresident of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women (FLAMUR). Four white candles were lit to honor Mario de la Peña, Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales and Armando Alejandre.

Dissident José Escobar Sánchez, president of the Gustavo Arcos Bergnes Movement, retold what happened February 24, 1996, when the Miami-based planes were intercepted.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 26 (Frank Correa / www.cubanet.org) – After months of not being available, potatoes went on sale in state markets this week for those using ration books.

The administrator of the “El Puesto” market in Jaimanitas, north of Havana, wrote on a blackboard that buyers would be limited to one pound of potatoes upon presentation of the ration book.

The presentation of the ration book for the purchase of potatoes had generally been ignored in the past, but was reintroduced due to food shortages caused by hurricanes last year.

MORON, Cuba, February 25 (Kallan Poe, APLA / www.cubanet.org).- There have been several fires, possibly arson, this month in sugar cane fields of the nearby Chillante cooperative. There have been no arrests.

The fires have prevented the workers involved from reaching the goals set by the government.

According to experts, February and March are the months when the sugar canes have the highest sugar content.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 25 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) –An elderly woman and her brother were injured last week when a three-story apartment building collapsed.

Although the building in the Marianao district had been declared uninhabitable in 1997, its 12 apartments were still occupied because of a housing shortage in Havana.

Firemen and police managed to rescue all the inhabitants February 20, but Juana Domínguez and her brother Ángel Luis were injured.

According to state statistics, an average of three buildings a day collapse in the capital.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 25 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) –Protests broke out last week when police arrested two bus drivers for allegedly pocketing fares.

Jorge Díaz Carmona and Pedro Dondique, drivers for state Ómnibus Metropolitanos, were arrested at the end of their routes. Other drivers threatened to go on strike in protest. They shouted “Abusers!” and “Murderers!” at the police as they tried to prevent the arrests.

The pair was fined 500 pesos each – the equivalent of just over the average monthly salary in Cuba – for alleged “manipulation of state funds.”

HAVANA, Cuba, February 24 (Aini Martín Valero, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) –Three men were arrested Monday in the Vedado district for collecting empty beer and soft drink cans from garbage cans.

They were identified as brothers José Agustín and José Manuel Reyes Muños and their cousin Gabriel Leiva Reyes, aged 19 to 25.

According to the mother and grandmother of the brothers, arresting officers said there exists an ordinance under which it is a crime to collect cans in the center of the city, subject to a fine of up to 1,500 pesos, about four times an average monthly salary.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 23 (Frank Correa / www.cubanet.org) - Arturo Montgomery, spokesman for the New Republic Movement, says two of its members were fired from their jobs with government entities because they participated in a protest march in Santiago de las Vegas.

Montgomery identified the pair as Luis Jesús Gutiérrez and Agustín García. He said Gutiérrez worked for Empresa de Medios Ópticos y Audiovisuales in Havana and Garciá for the Health Ministry in an anti-mosquito campaign. The firings occurred February 11.

Their work records say they were let go because their participation in the anti-government march showed they were not trustworthy.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 23 (Frank Correa / www.cubanet.org) – Seventeen activists were prevented by State Security agents from boarding a ferry to participate in a religious pilgrimage, according to the New Republic Movement

The movement's spokesman, Arturo Montgomery, said he and the other members were taken to a police station and questioned after being stopped February 8 en route to the Church of the Virgin of Regla. He said 30 agents were ay the dock.

He said an agent nicknamed Armored Tank told them he could "disappear" all of them if they continued anti-government activities.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 20 (Ana Aguililla / www.cubanet.org) – Two independent journalists were detained by police for three hours on Wednesday after attending a videoconference workshop at the U.S. Interests Section.

Reynier Vera, a member of the Juvenile Martiana Coalition, identified the two as coalition member Heriberto Liranza and Rafael Martínez of the New Republic Movement. He said the police confiscated T-shirts they were wearing and wrist bands which carried the letting "Cambio" (Change), a popular phrase used by dissidents. They were told the police would be on the lookout for them in the future.

The workshop was given by the International Media Center at Florida International University.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 20 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, Hablemos Press / www.cubanet.org) -Omayda Padrón Azcuy, secretary general of the Independent Libraries of Cuba, says State Security agents threatened him because he had attended a journalism workshop at the U.S. Interests Section.

Padrón Azcuy said two agents went to her home Thursday and said she could be arrested and jailed for attending for her participation in the workshops, which are given via videoconference by the International Media Center at Florida International University in Miami. "We're tired of speaking to you and we'll take action," she said one of the agents, named Roque, told her.

She said Roque is the agent who has threatened blogger Yoanis Sánchez for more than a year and a half.

RANCHUELO, Cuba, February 20 (Félix Reyes, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – There were two work stoppages in Ranchuelo this week by workers demanding wage increases.

Fifty workers at the Ramiro Lavandero Cruz cigarette packing plant stopped work for an hour on February 16, idling their U.S.-made machinery. The protest was touched off by a company decision to reduce the amount paid for overtime.

"We'll restart the equipment when the government reduces the price of soap, detergents, oils, shoes, clothing and other products sold in the convertible peso stores," said one worker.

A similar situation occurred at the Ifraín Alfonso Agroindustrial Complex where welders, mechanics and electricians walked off the job, saying their salaries weren't in line with the work they were performing.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 19 (Víctor Manuel Domínguez, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) – An independent union of shoe repairers was constituted on Monday, according to Carmelo Díaz Fernández, president of the Confederation of Independent Workers of Cuba.

Forty-five union activities and members of the Cuban People's Party and the National Commission of Cuba participated in the organizational meeting in the capital.

Founding members of the Independent Union of Shoe Repairers were identified as Eduardo Bravo, secretary-general; Orlando Castillo, organizer; Secretary-General, Alain Cairo, social and labor affairs; and Daraisi Pérez González, vocal.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 19 de febrero (Víctor Manuel Domínguez, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) - Richard Brown was sentenced last week to 22 months imprisonment for driving a pedicab without a license.

According to Minaldo Ramos of the Confederation of Independent Workers Brown had gone many times to the National Tributary Office and requested a license but was always turned down.

"Citizens have the right to work and if the government denies them this right, they're forced to work outside the law," said Ramos.

Brown was sentenced by the El Cristo Popular Municipal Court in Old Havana February 8.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 19 (Aini Martín, ALAS / www.cubanet.org) -
Havana police on Tuesday raided a home where an illegal dog fight was taking place and arrested the owner and those who were betting.

Scene of the fight was the home of Reinaldo Beltrán in the Valle Oculto neighborhood of the municipality of Regla in Havana.

Dog fights are illegal in Cuba, but are said to take place regularly in the capital and the interior.

CAIBARIEN, Cuba, February 19 (María de la Caridad Noa González / www.cubanet.org) – The opposition Human Rights and Family Reunification Commission says more than 1,000 Cubans have visas to travel to the United States but are being denied exit visas by the government.

Commission president Margarito Broche Espinosa said at a meeting February 16 that the government was denying the exit visas to penalize the commission for its work.

She said there were hundreds of Cubans living in the United States who want to visit Cuba but were being denied visas by the Cuban government.

ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD, Cuba February 16 (Lamasiel Gutiérrez, Isla Press / www.cubanet.org) - An ex-official of the Interior Ministry and current dissident, Raúl Luis Risco, continues to be harassed by authorities in Pinar del Río province.

On February 5 Judge Ana María Carmona told him his conditional liberty will be revoked if he continues anti-government activities.

Later, he was questioned by Judge Carmona and a colleague about his activities in Pinar del Río. They advised him to join a block committee.

PINAR DEL RÍO, Cuba, February (Rafael Ferro Salas , www.cubanet.org) - Residents say police have stepped up operations in Pinar del Río over the past two weeks, stopping cars on the highway and searching people in neighborhoods.

"One is obliged to stay at home like a prisoner, but it's better to be prisoner at home with the family than being detained by the police," said one resident while shopping at the local market. "They'll arrest you for any reason and seize what you're carrying."

Some residents say they no longer visit friends and relatives in other places for fear of being stopped on the way.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 17 (Juan Carlos González Leiva / www.cubanet.org) – Four prisoners have died in the Boniatico maximum security prison in Santiago de Cuba so far this year, according to political prisoner Raumel Vinajera.

Vinajera said the last prisoner was Guillermo Collazo, who suffered a fatal heart attack on January 31 and died in a cell in the prison hospital.

Vinajera, who's serving a five year sentence, also reported by telephone that a prisoner named Joel Basulto, who was serving a life sentence, hanged himself on February 6.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 17 (Juan Carlos González Leiva / www.cubanet.org) – Common prisoner Alexis Pupo was stabbed to death last week in the Las Tunas municipal prison for failing to honor a debt from a dice game, according to a political prisoner.

José Daniel Ferrer, a member of the Group of 75 dissidents imprisoned in 2003, said Pupo, 36, owed three packets of cigarettes to Richard Ramos, 26, and a fight ensued.

"A few days ago there were two other bloody incidents in this jail that resulted in injuries but no deaths," Ferrer said.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 17 (Oscar Espinosa Chepe / www.cubanet.org) -José Orta Acosta, a human rights activist who initially supported the 1959 revolution, died last week of a heart attack at age 84.

His death February 9 was reported by the Mayabequino Pro Human Rights Committee. He was buried the following day in the San José de Las Lajas Cemetery.

Orta was a member of the Cuban People's Party (Partido del Pueblo Cubano) in 1948 that opposed President Machado.

He opposed President Batista but soon broke with Fidel Castro when the revolution turned totalitarian.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, February 17 (Yoel Espinosa / www.cubanet.org) – Residents of the rural community of El Jiquí in the province of Villa Clara have been without a doctor ever since the last one left for service overseas three months ago.

"They comment on radio and television every day about the presence of Cuban doctors in remote places in other countries, but they don't talk about the hundreds of towns on the island where there are vacant clinics because the doctors are in Venezuela, Bolivia and who knows where else," said María Pérez, a resident of this community of 200.

Pérez said the nearest functioning medical post is 10 miles away and can only be reached on foot, bicycle or pedicab as there is no available motorized transportation.

RANCHUELO, Cuba, February 13 (Félix Reyes Gutiérrez, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Police forced the closing of one of four privately-owned ice cream parlors in Ranchuelo last week by seizing all the ingredients.

Owner Javier Rodríguez was held in custody for 48 hours, accused of buying the ingredients, such as milk, sugar and flour, on the black market.

Jorge Reyes, who lives nearby, said the closing of the shop, which is located across from a school, has caused protests from students and parents.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 10 (Georgina Noa / www.cubanet.org) – Dissident Luis Jesús Gutiérrez was fired from his job at a government company because of his participation in a march in Santiago de las Vegas January 22 demanding the release of political prisoners.

Gutiérrez, who worked at Empresa de Medios Ópticos y Audio Visuales in Havana, said, "They told me that I couldn't continue working there and to make any pertinent claims if I wanted to."

He said he was convinced he was fired because of his participation in the march.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 10 (Julio Beltrán, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) – State Security agents stopped a group of dissidents from boarding a boat Sunday to take them from Havana to Regla for a church service in support of political prisoners.

Georgina Noa, president of the Movimiento Liga Cívica Martiana, said, "This government should be ashamed of itself for committing these abuses against the integrity of people after signing international agreements on human rights."

Besides members of Noa's organizations were members of Por una Nueva República.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, February 9 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Imprisoned independent journalist Pablo Pacheco has refused to participate in the government's re-education Confidence Plan (Plan Confianza) under which he could gain his freedom.

A committee from the Interior Ministry and the penitentiary system interviewed Pacheco February 4 in the Ciego de Ávila prison.

Pacheco told the officials he was imprisoned because he was trying to save Cuba from socialism and did not regret anything he had done.

"To enter this plan of ideological rehabilitation would be betraying my principles," he told them, according to family members who were in contact with the prisoner.

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, February 9 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Police arrested dissident Juan Ramón Rivero in Santiago de Cuba for shouting anti-government slogans and illegally selling tomatoes.

Rivero, delegate of the Opposition Movement for a Republican Alternative (Movimiento Opositores para una Alternativa Republicana) was selling tomatoes and other vegetables in front of his house when detained by revenue agents and asked for his self-employment permit.

When the agents tried to seize his vegetable, he started to toss them to passersby and shout, "Down with Fidel!" and that Raul Castro was starving the people to death. Police were then called and arrested Pacheco.

LA HABANA, Cuba, February 9 (José Antonio Fornaris, Cuba-Verdad / www.cubanet.org) – Committees for Defense of the Revolution are carrying out a house-by-house census in Cuba to determine who has a job and who's unemployed.

Members of the block committees ask for the occupants' name, identity card and if they are employed.

Prison Inmate Commits Suicide

HAVANA, Cuba, February 5, (Frank Correa, Buró Informativo Unidad Liberal de la República de Cuba / www.cubanet.org) - Prisoner Benito Ramírez García committed suicide February 1 in his cell in the maximum security prison called Kilo 8.
Ramírez was in prison for murdering his wife and had expressed intentions of killing himself, but had not received psychiatric attention. He was from Cándido González municipality in Camagüey province.

Young Man Kills Himself in Santa Clara Prison

CAIBARIÉN, Cuba, February 6 (María de la Caridad Noa) – Inmate Maikel Pacheco, 26, killed himself by taking an overdose of unspecified medicines at the La Pendiente prison in Santa Clara January 23.
Pacheco died in the prison infirmary. He was from Santiago de Cuba and was serving an eight year sentence.

Police beat, arrest, protesting student

HAVANA, Cuba, February 6 (Jorge Alain Cantero / www.cubanet.org) – Police in the Vedado district of Havana beat up and arrested a medical student identified only as Ricardo after he publicly criticized a recent speech by president Raúl Castro.
The student loudly protested about Castro's recent speech in which he called the rental of beach houses "improper subsidies." Police in the area warned him and the student said he was excercising his right to an opinion. At that point, police beat him and arrested him.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 3 (Tania Maceda / www.cubanet.org) - Independent journalist Fabio Prieto Llorente, a member of the Group of 75 sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 2003 for consorting with anti-government elements, started a hunger strike last week, said fellow dissident Rolando Jiménez.

JIménez, also serving his sentence at the Guayabo prison on the isle of Youth, said by telephone that Prieto Llorente started the strike January 28 to protest scant and poor quality food being served on dirty trays.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 2 (Víctor Manuel Domínguez, Sindical Press / www.cubanet.org) – Cuba's Independent Union Movement (El Movimiento Sindical Independiente de Cuba) sent a letter last week to President Obama in which it expressed the hope he'd be the first American president to visit a free and democratic Cuba.

The letter said the organization's members have listened to some of the president's speeches and that the language he used were a sign that the role of the United States as an inspiration for others is assured.

The letter was signed by Carmelo Díaz Fernández, Jorge Olivera Castillo, Roberto Larramendi Estrada, William Toledo Terrero, Maydelin Caraballo, Milagros Toledo García, y Minaldo Ramos Salgado, among others.

HAVANA, Cuba, February 2 (Héctor Julio Cedeño / www.cubanet.org) – The police have increased the number of cruisers whose occupants are on the lookout for Cubans speaking to tourists, an action that can lead to arrest and a warning.

"The number of cruisers has multiplied and there are police everywhere," said one Cuban crossing Central park.

One of the crimes they're supposedly trying to stop is the "harassment of tourists" which can result in the person doing the harassment, often a young Cuba, being taken to the police station and warned to stop. He or she is told to keep away from tourists.

Repeat offenders can be charged as a danger to society and imprisoned for up to four years.

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ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD, Cuba, January 29 (Lamasiel Gutiérrez, Agencia Isla Press / www.cubanet.org) – An outbreak of porcine cholera has caused the deaths of thousands of pigs on the Isle of Youth, according to a report by the region's Veterinary Institute.

Although the cholera does not affect humans, authorities have banned the sale of pork from local farmers and the movement of their animals.

HAVANA, Cuba, January 29 (Asela Vega / www.cubanet.org) – The monthly allotment of sanitary napkins has not arrived at some pharmacies in Havana.

The Public Health Ministry allows every Cuban female between the ages of 10 and 55 to buy 10 napkins per month if they're registered in the pharmacy.

Various pharmacies that were checked said they did not know the cause of the non-supply of napkins.

HAVANA, Cuba, January 29 (Asela Vega / www.cubanet.org) – Authorities are investigating why the star was colored over in a photo of the Cuban flag that appeared on page one in Tuesday's edition of Granma, the Communist Party newspaper.

It's not the first time that a photo in the newspaper has been altered. A photo of Fidel Castro was once published showing the former president with a moustache like that of Adolfo Hitler. Another time a photo appeared of members of the National Assembly blindfolded.

Indications given this reporter is that discontent with the government has even reached some people on the newspaper or with access to it.

HAVANA, Cuba, January 29 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) – Police last Sunday raided the so-called Bird Park, confiscated cages and exotic birds and fined sellers.

Some of the sellers told this reporter that buyers went to the park to find bargains since the government sells the bird sat a much higher price.

The authorities said the sellers did not have licenses to sell the birds. The sellers said the licenses are too costly and complicated to obtain.

HAVANA, Cuba, January 28 (Tania Maceda Guerra / www.cubanet.org) – Political prisoner Manuel Estepe has been given conditional freedom after serving half of his six-year sentence spreading "enemy propaganda."

Estepe, 44, a member of the Cuban pro Human Rights Committee, served most of his sentence in the Nieves Morejón prison in Sancti Spiritus province, where he lived.

HAVANA, Cuba, January 27 (Tania Maceda / www.cubanet.org) - Reinaldo Labrada Peña, a member of the so-called Group of 75 imprisoned in 2000, has been released after serving his six-year sentence.

He becomes the first of the group to fulfill his sentence. Others have been released on medical grounds.

"I'm very happy to be returning to my family," said Labrada, 46, shortly after his release January 15.

Estoy muy contento de volver al seno de mi familia" -dijo Labrada poco después de abandonar la prisión.

Labrada Peña, a member of the Cuban Human Rights Council, has been suffering from anemia and chromic gastritis.

HAVANA, Cuba, January 27 (Aini Martín, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) - A 60-year-old street peddler named Pablo was accused of illicit activity, beaten and arrested, according to eye witnesses.

The incident took place January 21 in the Vedado district, where the peddler was selling toothpaste and coffee.

The peddler told police the goods weren't stolen but were purchased under his ration card and not used by him, so he was selling them

Arrested ball player transferred to Havana

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, January 23 (Licet Zamora, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – The Department of State Security transferred previously arrested baseball player Juan Yasser Serrano to Havana January 15. Serrano had been held at State Security headquarters in Santa Clara since his arrest January 11 under suspicion of attempting to leave the country.
Before being arrested, Serrano was greeted by three foreign tourists at the Coppelia ice cream parlor in Santa Clara and was subsequently arrested by several agents under the command of lieutenant colonel José Luis Rabel.
According to Serrano's relatives, the tourists held false passports and police are investigating a possible link to the ball player.

Government calls an end to "Battle of Ideas"

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, January 23 (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Provincial officials of the National "Battle of Ideas" program say they were told in Havana that the program will draw to a close shortly to save money.
Officials said Party Central Committee members Rolando Alfonso Borges and Julio Martínez announced at a meeting in Cojímar, east of Havana, that the program had fullfilled its objectives.
Officials also reported that at the same meeting the gratuities granted to the social workers involved in the program had been discussed.
The "Battle of Ideas" is a campaign involving public relations and actual deeds initiated in the year 2000 by order of Fidel Castro. The campaign consisted of 77 specific tasks aimed at improving health and living conditions in Cuba.

Antigovernment graffiti in Havana municipality

Havana, Cuba. January 20 ( Julio Beltrán, Agencia Libre Asociada / www.cubanet.org) – Someone painted antigovernment graffiti at several bus stops near a police station in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo overnight.
Police cordoned off the affected areas starting in the early morning and hurriedly photographed, scraped and painted the walls on which slogans such as Down with Fidel! and Down with Raúl! had been painted.
Police also searched nearby houses, but apparently did not find what they were looking for nor were they able to identify any suspects.
A local resident who decided to talk to this reporter said: "Talking to you could cost me several years in prison. Already a State Security agent came to me, and after asking whether I had seen anything, told me if any counterrevolutionaries came asking questions to not talk to them and to let him know immediately. He also said they are not afraid of a few signs painted on a wall."

Police confiscate journalists' cameras

Havana, Cuba. January 19. (Francisco Chaviano / www.cubanet.org) – Police intercepted two journalists Friday and took them to the Santiago de las Vegas police station, where they confiscated the journalists' cameras and other equipment. According to the journalists police refused to properly document the confiscated equipment.
The journalists were arrested after they left the residence of the Public Affairs officer of the United States Interest Section in Havana, where they had been invited to a ceremony marking their completion of a journalism course they had been taking. During the ceremony, the journalists received presents, including some cameras.

Frequent blackouts in Havana

Havana, Cuba. January 16. (Belinda Salas / www.cubanet.org) – Havana has been subject to frequent blackouts since the beginning of the year and residents find no information as to their causes in the government media.
The blackouts have been of short duration, happening indistinctly during the day and night in the Havana municipalities of El Cerro, Centro Habana, 10 de Octubre, and Arroyo Naranjo.
Beyond the inconvenience, residents fear they may be a harbinger of extended blackouts such as those seen during the '90s, when the so-called "special period" brought extensive blackouts after the Soviet Union cut economic subsidies to the island.

Baseball player arrested

Ranchuelo, Cuba. January 16. (Félix Reyes Gutiérrez, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) – Juan Yasser Serrano, 20, who plays with the Villa Clara baseball club was arrested by State Security agents January 11 under an accusation of "presumed illegal attempt to leave the country."
Jorge Luis Artiles, a former masseuse at the baseball academy in Villa Clara said the ball player was arrested before dawn after he left the Santa Clara Libre hotel where the team were staying.
Serrano, who was at one time a member of the Cuban national youth team, was taken to the State Security headquarters in Santa Clara, the provincial capital, for interrogation.
Serrano had apparently had some contact with Enrique César Rodríguez, also known as Kiki Mayonesa, who is said to be an informer for lieutenant colonel Uberto Rodríguez, in charge of the human trafficking department at the Interior Ministry.

Doctor threatened with firing

HAVANA, Cuba, January 14 (Álvaro Yero / www.cubanet.org) – Dr. Carmen Hernández says she has been threatened with loss of her post at the Mantilla Polyclinic for her opposition to doctors serving abroad, among other things.

"I've never wanted to destroy the image of the revolution," she said. "I only want to improve work conditions."

"I'm not in agreement with the exportation of our medical personnel to other countries if that means neglecting the health of our people," she said. "Thinking isn't a crime."

Hernández said that two State Security agents showed up at the clinic and told her she runs the risk of losing her post and not being able to practice medicine is she continued to reveal problems in the health system. She said this was not the first time she'd been threatened by State Security.

Health of political prisoner worsens

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, January 14 (José Ramón Pupo Nieves, Holguín Press / www.cubanet.org) – The health of political prisoner Julián Antonio Monet continues to worsen because of lack of medical attention and his hunger strike, according to a fellow inmate at the Boniato prison in Santiago de Cuba.

Ángel Antonio Blanco said in a telephone call that four of the ailments Monet suffers have become chronic: laryngitis, asthma, pharyngitis and tonsillitis.

Monet's 84-year-old mother said she has told United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon of her fear that she'll never again see her son alive.

Monet, president of the Miguel Valdés Tamayo Movement, is serving a three-year sentence for transgression.

Youth sentenced for selling ham sandwiches

HAVANA, Cuba, January 13 (Álvaro Yero Felipe / www.cubanet.org) - Edel Eduardo Martínez, 18, was sentenced to a year in prison last week for illicit salesmanship: selling ham sandwiches to beachgoers.

Martínez was arrested January 2 at the Guanabo beach and accused of insult and of resisting arrest, besides the charge of being an independent seller. But his brother said he didn't insult anyone and went peacefully with the police.

"Those who were abusing were those who beat my brother as he lay handcuffed on the floor," he said. He added that his brother was denied the services of a lawyer at his trial.

Dissident fined for refusing to leave house

HAVANA, Cuba, January 13 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) – Dissident Carlos Ríos was fined 250 pesos – about a month's salary – for refusing to leave his house which authorities say is to be demolished as unfit for habitation.

Ríos has lived in the house, located at kilometer 2 ½ of the highway to La Coloma in Pinar del Río province, for 10 years. Last November 25 the Municipal Housing Board decreed the house not fit for use and ordered Ríos out and the structure demolished.

The chief of the district police fined Ríos last week and told him he'd be jailed and his 13-year-old would become a ward of the government if he didn't move out

Fire partially destroys foreign currency store

Leonel Alberto Pérez Belette

HAVANA, Cuba, January 12 (www.cubanet.org) - A fire December 30 partially destroyed a foreign currency department store in La Puntilla.

The government gave some details of the fire but omitted to say that firefighters didn't arrive until 30 minutes after the alarm was given. Store workers, in the meantime, used the few fire extinguishers in the building to try and control eh blaze.

The fire began around 2:30 p.m. in the basement where employees said paint and other inflammable products ignited.

Dissident denied permission to travel to capital

HOLGUIN, Cuba, January 12 (José Ramón Pupo Nieves – Holguín Press / www.cubanet.org) – State Security agents prevented dissident María Antonia Hidalgo Mir from travelling from Holguín, where she lives, to Havana last week.

When she entered the Frank País Airport to board her flight, two agents stopped her and took her the State Security offices in the building where she was questioned.

After the Holguín-Havana flight had left January 8, she was taken home, along with her husband and young daughter in a police cruiser.

"I don't know how the government of Raúl Castro is fulfilling the human rights agreements it signed when in reality we peaceful defenders of those rights are victims of infernal harassment," she said.

Pro-government signs pasted on dissident's home

HAVANA, Cuba, January 9 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org ) –Pro-government messages were pasted last week on the door of the home of ex-political prisoner Orlando Fundora and excrement smeared on the entrance.

Among the messages were ones saying "Long Live Fidel," "Down with the worms," "Death to traitors" and "We don't want you in Cuba." There were also photos of Fidel and Raul Castro.

After the unknown person did the pasting on January 2, they threw rocks against the entrance.

Fundora was sentenced in 2005 to 20 years imprisonment but was released under supervision for reasons of health. He is currently director of the Pedro Luis Boitel Association of Political Prisoners.

Police seize sales goods worth US$4 from vendor

CAMAGŰEY, Cuba, January 8 (José Agramonte, Agencia de Prensa Libertad / www.cubanet.org) – Three government inspectors seized cigarettes and candy worth US$4 from Zoila Leyva, 75, who was selling them to passengers at the bus depot to augment her pension.

Leyva was hospitalized after suffering a case of nerves while being questioned at the police station, where she was taken.

"It was abusive," said a passenger who witnessed the incident. "She wasn't hurting anyone. What she sells helps us who are waiting, a candy here, a cigarette there."

Leyva told police she started selling candy and cigarettes at the bus depot because her pension was insufficient to cover her needs.

Police threaten female dissident with a machete

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, January 8 (Idania Yanes, Villa Clara Press / www.cubanet.org) – A police officer threatened pacifist Neris Castillo with a machete and told her she wouldn't be allowed to speak badly of the government, according to an eye witness.

Activist Juana Gómez Riego said she saw Vicente García, chief of the area police, wave the machete at Castillo at her home in San Miguel del Padrón in Havana on January 2.

Hours earlier Castillo had protested publicly hats he called poor medical attention in Cuba. She had been fruitlessly trying to find medication for her ailing young son.

Opposition leader sentenced to 6 years

HAVANA, Cuba, January 6 (Leafar Pérez / www.cubanet.org) – The provincial court in Pinar del Río province sentenced Víctor Paino Viera, coordinator of the Independent Change Union (Sindicato Independiente Cambio) to six years in prison last week on charges of insult, anti-government acts and resisting arrest.

Paino Viera, who is also a member of the New Nation Alliance (Alianza Nueva Nación) was arrested October 2 and held at the 5 1/2 Kilometer prison. He was sentenced January 2 at a closed trial

To prevent any other dissidents from trying to attend the trial, provincial state security officers under the command of Lieut. Gen. Ramón Veume Ruiz were on duty.

Work stoppage at railroad repair shop

MORÓN, Cuba, January 5, Tico Morales, APLA / www.cubanet.org).- After the New Year's holiday, the railroad repair shop in Morón did not open as scheduled because no one showed up to work.
According to one worker at the shop, they worked up to 16 hours a day on the 30 and 31 of December and on January 1, but management is refusing to pay them overtime wages.
The personnel assigned to the Morón repair yard includes 15 locomotive operators, 9 of whom are beyond retirement age, and 10 mechanics, of whom seven are near or beyond the age of retirement, said the worker.

Police take down anti-government signs

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, January 1 2009, (Yunieski García López, Villa Clara Press / www.cubanet.org) – On December 29 a number of State Security agents, "Rapid Response Brigades" shock troops, and regular police stormed the home of government opponent Idania Yanes Contreras in order to take down a number of anti-government slogans.
The slogans painted on the exterior walls of the house, read: "Up with Human Rights," "Down with Castro," and "Cuba Yes, Castro No."
Initially, Yanes refused to obliterate the signs, so the official party broke through a chain securing a gate and beat up Yanes and anti-government activists Damaris Moya Portieles, Aramilda Contreras Rodríguez and Alcides Rivera Rodríguez.
They then took the four to the police station and released them after several hours after issuing them "warning writs."
Yanes later said that while they were detained, authorities scraped the slogans off the walls, and added that they repainted the slogans as soon as they were released.