Cuban Poet/Dissident released!!

From La Nueva Cuba:

Cuba's communist government freed on Tuesday dissident writer and journalist Raúl Rivero his wife Blanca told Agence France Presse (AFP). Rivero was serving a 20-year prison sentence after his arrest in March. Rivero's freedom is the latest in a series of releases apparently aimed at cleaning up the island's human rights record. Rivero was released a day after Cuba unexpectedly freed three other dissidents who had been jailed last year in a broad crackdown. All of the detainees were among 75 dissidents incarcerated with sentences ranging from seven to 28 years. The dissidents were set free following a meeting last Thursday between Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque and Spain's ambassador to Cuba, Carlos Alonso Zaldivar. The meeting marked the first official contact between Cuba and Spain, a member of the European Union, since June 2003, when European Union officials imposed sanctions protesting the crackdown and the executions of three Black Cubans convicted of trying to hijack a boat to the US. International human rights groups called on Fidel Castro's government to free dozens of others still behind bars. In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher welcomed the releases but said the detainees never should have been imprisoned in the first place. "We continue to condemn the unjust incarceration of dozens of other prisoners of conscious in Cuba," Boucher said. "We hope that they can return to their work to build a truly just and open Cuban society", Boucher added. Also José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch said it is a welcome move, but many more prisoners remain incarcerated. Vivanco asked Cuba to release these other political prisoners who are in jail in violation of their fundamental rights." "We call on the Cuban authorities to release all of them." Those prisoners freed on parole Monday included economics writer Oscar Espinosa Chepe, who was hospitalized behind bars for months with a liver ailment. "I'm feeling happy now," Espinosa Chepe told The Associated Press at his Havana home, noting that Monday was his 64th birthday. "I had been really pessimistic. I didn't think I was going to be let out." Also freed Monday for health reasons were dissidents Marcelo López and Margarito Broche. López has a neurological disorder, and Broche suffered a heart attack behind bars in August. The latest releases bring to 11 the number of dissidents in the original group of 75 who have since been freed after being imprisoned in April 2003. They were charged with working with the U.S. government to undermine Castro's socialist system, something the dissidents and American officials denied.

Servicios Cablegráficos Combinados
La Habana
Cuba
La Nueva Cuba
Noviembre 30, 2004

Posted by Val Prieto at November 30, 2004 01:02 PM

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Things are interesting here at the temporary lair, and I am devoting a good deal of time to said interesting (good) situation. Meantime, here are some links to some things going under the mainstream radar, along with a few observations:... [Read More]

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Posted by: Margi at November 30, 2004 02:39 PM

Posted by: j.scott barnard at November 30, 2004 02:49 PM