Dissidents vow protests to free comrades
Castro opponents threatened street protests unless 13 dissidents are
released from prison.
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuba's Ladies in White and other dissidents vowed Monday to take to the
streets if the government does not soon release the 13 opponents it had
promised to free from jail.
``If not, we will continue to fight in the streets for the freedom of
all political prisoners,'' said Berta Soler, whose husband Angel Moya,
one of the 13, is serving a 20-year sentence.
Havana dissident Martha Beatriz Roque told reporters that if the 13 are
not freed soon there would be a mobilization of the ``opposition on the
streets'' and ``a general movement in the prisons.''
DEADLINE
The Raúl Castro government and Cuba's Catholic church were silent Monday
on the continued imprisonment of the 13 dissidents after an informal
deadline of Sunday passed.
They were the last of 52 dissidents that the Castro government had
promised to free. The other 39 were released after they accepted exile
in Spain.
Soler, a leader of the Ladies in White, who are all relatives of
political prisoners, said the group tried but failed to talk Monday to
Cardinal Jaime Ortega, whose office has made all the announcements on
releases of political prisoners.
``We're trying to talk to the Cardinal, and nothing so far,'' Soler said
by telephone from Havana. ``We are waiting, but we still have hope that
they will be freed, as promised.''
Dissident Guillermo Fariñas issued but then withdrew a threat to resume
a 134-day hunger strike, which had put him near death. It appears that
hunger strike may have helped push Castro to agree to free the dissidents.
Fariñas, who last month won the Sakharov human rights prize from the
European Parliament, said he was holding off on the hunger strike at the
request of the Ladies in White and other dissidents.
The final 13 prisoners don't want to go to Spain. Among them is Cuba's
most outspoken dissident, Oscar Elias Biscet, an Afro-Cuban physician
serving a 25-year sentence since a 2003 crackdown on the opposition
known as the island's ``Black Spring.''
Cuba ``should honor the deadline it agreed to earlier in the year and
free all Cuban activists from its prisons,'' said David Kramer,
executive director of the U.S.-based advocacy group Freedom House.
``These activists have been severely punished for nothing more than
expressing their desire for democratic self-governance.
`UNJUSTLY HELD'
``While we welcome the release of 46 unjustly held political prisoners
over the past four months, we are concerned by reports that 13 (others)
... still remain in prison because they refuse to accept forced exile,''
Kramer added.
Roque noted that while the 13 peaceful dissidents remain in prison, the
government has freed or promised to free 14 other prisoners -- some who
were convicted of violent crimes such as hijackings.
She added that one of the 14, José Luis Ramil Navarro, told her by
telephone Sunday that he had served 10 years in prison for hijacking a
boat in 1994, but is now serving a 15-year sentence for drug trafficking.
Noting that three of the 13 are dissident journalists, the Paris-based
Reporters Without Frontiers said the Cuban government ``has not met its
promise'' because they want to remain on the island.
Spain already has received 46 former Cuban prisoners and 272 of their
relatives in what has been Cuba's largest release of prisoners since
shortly after Pope John Paul II's visit to the island in 1998, when
about 300 prisoners were freed.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/09/1916070/dissidents-vow-protests-to-free.html
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