HAVANA, Jan 18 (Reuters) - A provincial Cuban court has handed a six-month prison sentence to a dissident journalist after he was charged with "hoarding'' scores of toys he was seeking to give to poor children, activists said on Tuesday.
Victor Arroyo, who writes for the small, unauthorised news agency Independent Union of Cuban Journalists and Writers, was tried and convicted on Friday in his home province of Pinar del Rio in western Cuba, the dissident sources said.
He was not jailed, however, and had three working days to present an appeal.
Cuban security agents confiscated 150 toys at Arroyo's house in the provincial capital Pinar del Rio, but he had already given away another 100 in the area, the sources said.
Fellow dissident journalists, who work illegally outside Cuba's state-controlled media, denounced Arroyo's case as politically motivated harassment, saying he was merely trying to bring some cheer to needy children in the area.
``I think that public opinion should meditate on what happened, and realise that in Cuba, you cannot even give away a toy free,'' Arroyo was quoted as saying by the Havana-based dissident news agency Cuba Press.
He added that technically he was not guilty of ``hoarding'' because a conviction needs proof he intended to resell the products, when in fact he was giving them away.
As with most other dissident trials, Cuban authorities and state news media have not mentioned Arroyo's case, and officials were unavailable to comment.
Havana considers dissident journalists -- like overt opposition activists -- counter-revolutionary ``traitors'' and ``mercenaries'' masquerading as reporters. The government does not accept the word ``dissident,'' saying all internal opponents are agents of the U.S. government or Cuban-American
groups in Florida opposed to President Fidel Castro.
Arroyo raised money from U.S. groups to buy the toys in Cuban dollar-only shops, the dissident sources said.
Giving away toys would be likely to irk Cuban authorities, who frequently boast that the island's children -- while not rich -- enjoy a level of health, education and other basic facilities not available in other Third World countries.
Government officials also contend Cuban children are not subject to the uncontrolled materialism of capitalist countries.
17:42 01-18-00
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