HAVANA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Cuban state security freed leading moderate dissident Oswaldo Paya after a day-long detention apparently intended to prevent a scheduled opposition meeting in Havana, relatives said on Wednesday.
They said Paya, who leads the small Christian Liberation Movement, was released at 8 p.m. (0100 GMT) Tuesday night, after being picked up from his home at dawn.
The relatives could not give more details of the detention, and Paya was not immediately available to comment.
Another well-known moderate dissident, Hector Palacios, founder of the Democratic Solidarity Party, was picked up Tuesday and taken for questioning at a state security house in Havana. He was released late in the afternoon.
Palacios said afterwards that the short arrests were intended to prevent a meeting of dissidents to discuss a document they issued at last November's Ibero-American Summit of Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese heads of state.
The document, titled ``Todos Unidos'' (All Together) called for peaceful reforms to communist leader Fidel Castro's one- party political system.
Palacios and Paya also held unprecedented meetings with various foreign dignitaries, including Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, during the November meeting.
Havana outlaws opposition parties and condemns all anti- government activists as U.S.-funded counter-revolutionary ``mercenaries'' and ``traitors'' masquerading as dissidents.
There was no official confirmation of Tuesday's arrests.
The detentions of Paya and Palacios, both of whose groups urge peaceful reforms to Castro's one-party system, came after three months of tough government action against dissidents, including temporary detentions of several hundred activists, some for hours and others for days.
Local rights watchdog, the Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, says at least two dozen peaceful dissidents remain in detention. The commission estimates there are a total of 344 political prisoners in Cuba.
10:54 01-26-00
Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. |