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Cuba frees nine dissidents but still
holds 17 others in crackdown
HAVANA, 23 (AFP) - Cuba released nine
detained political dissidents but continued
to hold another 17 activists arrested in
the largest crackdown on the opposition
by President Fidel Castro's communist regime
in two years, dissidents said.
The nine, including the country's most
prominent female dissident, Marta Beatriz
Roque, were released Saturday morning a
day after being rounded up in Cuba's latest
move against the island's political opposition.
Roque, a 60-year-old economist, is president
of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil
Society, which had organized a protest in
front of the French embassy here Friday
to demand the release of political prisoners
from Cuban jails.
Many of those detained Friday were leading
figures in the group.
Pallid and visibly fatigued, Roque remained
defiant and called for more protests against
the government.
"The way is the street and we are
going to use the streets across the country,"
Roque told foreign reporters in her Havana
home.
Opposition groups "are waiting for
a new order to launch onto the streets to
demand the liberty of our imprisoned brothers,"
she said.
Another 17 people detained Friday remained
in government hands, including such prominent
dissidents as Rene Gomez Manzano and Felix
Bonne Carcaces, said APCS spokesman Angel
Polanco.
The group organized the protest at the
French embassy, they said, because the dissidents
had been excluded from joining the embassy's
July 14 Bastille Day celebrations.
Meanwhile Cuban government officials were
invited to the events, symbolizing the recent
normalization of relations between the two
governments.
On Saturday Francoise Hostalier, a French
human rights advocate, encouraged Paris
to press Cuba to free the remaining jailed
dissidents.
"France is directly involved in these
detentions," she said.
Vladimiro Roca, member of the opposition
group Todos Unidos, said the government
was nervous about increasing disquiet among
the Cuban people over the weak economy,
power outages and food shortages in advance
of the country's July 26 national day festival.
"The social tension is climbing. The
government is tense, even moreso because
the main ceremony on July 26 - the day of
the National Revolution - will be in Havana,"
said Roca.
The roundup of dissidents was the second
this month. About 30 people were arrested
in Havana on July 13 during a demonstration
commemorating the drowning death in 1994
of 41 people who were trying to flee Cuba
by boat. Six of the 30 are still behind
bars, dissident sources said.
The roundups were the largest sweep since
2003, when the government jailed 75 members
of the opposition.
Roque, founder of the APCS and the only
woman among the 75, was sentenced at the
time to 20 years in prison.
She was released for health reasons one
year ago, suffering from diabetes, hypertension
and partial paralysis of the face. She had
already spent three years in jail between
1997 and 2000.
Elizardo Sanchez, president of the Cuban
Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation, called the arrests Friday
"absolutely arbitrary" and a "flagrant
violation of human rights."
In Washington, the United States also condemned
the crackdown.
"Their only crime was attempting to
exercise their basic human rights and freedoms,"
said Adam Ereli, the State Department's
deputy spokesman.
"We call on the Cuban government to
end this deplorable repression and immediately
free all of those arrested. We urge other
countries to join us in condemning these
acts," Ereli added.
3 Cuban Dissidents Released After Roundup
By Anita Snow, Associated
Press Writer. July 23, 2005.
HAVANA - Cuba's top woman opposition leader
and at least two other dissidents were released
Saturday, one day after they and more than
a dozen other opponents were detained in
an apparent effort to quell an anti-government
protest.
Martha Beatriz Roque, known internationally
for her organization of an unprecedented
mass meeting of dissidents here in May,
was released before dawn Saturday.
A government opponent for more than a decade,
Roque spearheaded the highly publicized
meeting of the Assembly for the Promotion
of Civil Society that drew about 200 dissidents
on May 20.
At the time, dissidents and observers expressed
surprise that Fidel Castro's government
even allowed the meeting to be held. Several
European lawmakers, dissidents and other
observers who had hoped to attend were expelled.
"All members of the assembly agree
on going into the streets," Roque said
after her release. She added that she would
continue her opposition activities.
Two other women detained in Friday's roundup
were also released Saturday, said Elizardo
Sanchez, a longtime rights activist.
Cuba's communist government has not commented
on Friday's detention of as many as 20 dissidents
who had planned to attend a protest that
day outside the French Embassy.
The roundup was criticized Saturday by
the U.S. State Department, which said the
dissidents' only crime "was attempting
to exercise their basic human rights and
freedoms."
"We call on the Cuban government to
end this deplorable repression and immediately
free all of those arrested," State
Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in
a statement.
By midday Saturday, those who still remained
in custody included Rene Gomez Manzano and
Felix Bonne, two other veteran dissidents
who helped Roque organize the May assembly
meeting in Bonne's back yard.
Sanchez, of the non-governmental Cuban
Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation, said up to 20 dissidents
were detained Friday after chanting government
supporters helped break up a protest they
had planned outside the diplomatic mission.
Roque and others had been expected at the
Friday morning protest outside the embassy,
but she never showed and her whereabouts
were unknown until Sanchez confirmed she
and the others were detained.
Just a dozen dissidents showed for the
morning protest to demand the release of
political prisoners, far fewer than expected.
"Our objective is to demand that the
European nations take an interest in the
political prisoners of our country,"
opposition member Adolfo Lazaro Bosk said
at the protest.
Sanchez also said government supporters
from the dissidents' neighborhoods organized
counterprotests around the homes of some,
making it impossible for them to leave Friday.
In other cases, dissidents planning to attend
the protest at the diplomatic mission were
visited and warned by state security agents
not to go, Sanchez said.
In March 2003, the government arrested
75 independent journalists, opposition politicians,
rights activists and others, accusing them
of receiving U.S. aid to overthrow Castro's
government and sentencing them to long prison
terms.
Among those arrested in that earlier crackdown
was Roque, who was released a year ago on
medical parole.
U.S. authorities have repeatedly rejected
charges by the Cuban government that it
pays dissidents to help undermine Castro's
rule.
New Cuban crackdown nets more than a
dozen dissidents
HAVANA, 23 (AFP) - Cuba's most prominent
female dissident, Marta Beatriz Roque, and
more than a dozen other activists have been
arrested in a new crackdown on the opposition
by President Fidel Castro's regime, dissidents
said.
Roque, a 60-year-old economist, is president
of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil
Society, which had organized a protest in
front of the French embassy here Friday
to demand the release of political prisoners
from Cuban jails.
Many of those detained Friday were leading
figures in the group.
"She was detained by state security
agents shortly after leaving her home. About
20 dissidents have been arrested,"
said Elizardo Sanchez, president of the
Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation.
He called the arrests "absolutely
arbitrary" and a "flagrant violation
of human rights."
Roque herself was released hours later,
and was at home resting early Saturday,
the rights group's spokesman, Angel Polanco,
said. Five others also had been released
by early Saturday, but 14 of those detained
Friday were still behind bars, including
such prominent dissidents as Rene Gomez
Manzano and Felix Bonne, the spokesman added.
Roque was sentenced to 20 years in prison
in 2003 but was released for health reasons
exactly one year ago, on July 22, 2004,
suffering from diabetes, hypertension and
partial paralysis of the face. She had already
spent three years in jail between 1997 and
2000.
Roque was the only woman arrested in 2003
in a crackdown that landed 75 dissidents
in Cuban prisons. She founded the assembly,
which groups some 360 Cuban opposition organizations,
shortly before.
The group held its first national assembly
in May, bringing 160 delegates from all
over Cuba for a two-day meeting near Havana
that unfolded without interference from
Fidel Castro's regime.
James Cason, the top official at the US
Interests Section in Havana, has twice participated
in assembly activities, in a sign of the
close link between Roque and Washington.
"We have indications that there were
other arrests, but we are in the process
of trying to verify the information. In
most cases, authorities prevented dissidents
from leaving their homes," Marco Lopez
of the rights committee said earlier.
On Thursday, Roque said by telephone that
the decision to demonstrate in front of
the French embassy was to show dissidents'
displeasure with the normalization of relations
between Paris and Havana, which took place
a week ago today.
"We will demand the liberation of
the (Cuban political) prisoners, and we
will show the European Union what happens
with dialogue (with the Cuban government),"
Roque had warned.
The EU sanctioned Cuba after Castro's regime
cracked down on dissidents in 2003, but
in January, the EU temporarily suspended
the sanctions, and in June, it ratified
re-establishment of political dialogue with
Havana.
It also ordered a suspension of its practice
of inviting Cuban dissidents to national
celebrations, saying that, instead, a parallel
dialogue should be established with the
opposition.
France went one step further last week
by inviting Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe
Perez Roque to the French embassy's July
14 Bastille Day celebration.
About 30 people were arrested in Havana
on July 13 during a demonstration commemorating
the drowning death in 1994 of 41 people
who were trying to flee Cuba by boat. Six
of the 30 are still behind bars, dissident
sources said.
US slams communist Cuba for latest crackdown
on dissidents 2 hours, 44 minutes ago
WASHINGTON, 23 (AFP) - The United States
condemned communist Cuba's authorities for
their latest crackdown against dissidents.
"Yesterday, July 22, the Cuban government
arrested Rene Gomez Manzano and detained
at least a dozen members of the Asamblea
para Promover la Sociedad Civil (Assembly
for the Promotion of Civil Society), including
Marta Beatriz Roque, the group's president.
Their only crime was attempting to exercise
their basic human rights and freedoms,"
said Adam Ereli, the State Department's
deputy spokesman.
Roque, a 60-year-old economist, is president
of the assembly, which had organized a protest
in front of the French embassy in Havana
Friday to demand the release of political
prisoners from Cuban jails.
Ereli said "there are also credible
reports that the homes of dozens of activists
were surrounded by government-sponsored
mobs, which used threats and intimidation
to prevent members of the Asamblea from
joining their colleagues in a peaceful demonstration.
Cuban state security officials warned these
activists to stay inside and not to leave
their homes.
"We call on the Cuban government to
end this deplorable repression and immediately
free all of those arrested. We urge other
countries to join us in condemning these
acts," Ereli added.
Castro: I'm Honored to Be Elian's Friend
AP, Friday July 22, 2005.
Cuban President Fidel Castro said in a
speech published Friday that he's honored
to be a friend of Elian Gonzalez, the boy
at the center of an international custody
dispute five years ago.
"I have the privilege to be his friend,"
Castro said Thursday night during Elian's
sixth-grade graduation in the coastal city
of Cardenas, east of Havana.
The speech was broadcast on state television
and published Friday in the Communist Party
daily Granma.
Elian, now 11, was the subject of a high-profile
legal and ideological battle between his
father in Cuba and family members in South
Florida, both who claimed custody.
Elian was taken to his relatives in Miami
in November 1999 after he was found clinging
to an inner tube in the waters off Florida.
He was among three people who survived when
their boat bound from Cuba to the United
States sank.
Elian's mother was among those who perished.
After a seven-month battle, Elian returned
with his father to Cuba in June 2000.
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