Spotlight on Cuba: Crackdown on Dissidents

Chronology of Events

October 31, 2003: Cuban poet and journalist Raul Rivero, sentenced to 20 years in prison, is in poor health, suffering from vitamin deficiency and rapid weight loss, according to his wife, Blanca Reyes. Reyes said she was concerned about the health of her husband, who is serving time in a Ciego de Avila prison, some 480 kilometers (300 miles) southeast of the capital. Rivero, 57, is one of 75 Cuban dissidents sentenced in early April to up to 28 years in prison for threatening the independence and sovereignty of the state, collaborating with the United States and undermining the principles of the revolution. (EFE, 31/10/03)

October 31, 2003: Fidel Castro called his Spanish counterpart, José María Aznar, a "Celestina" for his tour throughout Latin America "recruiting youngsters" for "a war of conquest" against Iraq. "What is the Spanish Celestina doing recruiting young Latin-Americans for a war of conquest," asked Castro in an over four-hour long speech at the closing ceremony of the 25th Assembly of the Latin American Council on Social Sciences (CLACSO). Celestina is a character in the homonym work by Spanish author Fernando de Rojas (XV century) that represents a go-between who uses all her wiles to seduce others into wrongdoing. (ABC, 1/11/03)

October 30, 2003: The wives and mothers of seven political prisoners on a hunger strike in a Holguín prison sent a letter to Cuban authorities in which they hold Fidel Castro responsible for any harm to their relatives' health. The seven started the hunger strike on October 17 in protest against the treatment they've received and the "subhuman conditions" of their imprisonment, said relatives. (Europa Press, 31/10/03)

October 29, 2003: Cuban authorities interrogated Claudia Marquez, wife of an imprisoned Cuban dissident and editorial board member of the opposition magazine De Cuba, Marquez reported after leaving the police station. Two State Security agents arrested her and drove her to a police precinct in Marianao, a working-class neighborhood of Havana, Marquez told the press. She said once she was at the police station, agents "said they weren't going to allow [the publication] of another edition of De Cuba magazine, that my statements had been very aggressive lately and that I was becoming increasingly outspoken." "They also told me that I was reorganizing the society of journalists and independent press and that they weren't going to allow it," she said. Agents repeatedly told Marquez the interrogation was "a warning" for violating the so-called "Gag Law," which imposes sentences of up to 20 years for those who divulge information that could endanger "the independence, sovereignty and integrity of the Cuban state," she said. (Sun Sentinel, 30/10/03)

October 29, 2003: The Socialist International's XXII Congress held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, asked for the liberation of political opponents in Cuba. The Congress made this appeal "within the framework of the national legistation in force and the international treaties on human rights, and dialogue among the sectors of the country to continue with the democratic process on the island without intervention from any foreign country". As well as criticizing Castro, the final declaration of the Sao Paulo socialist meeting said the US trade and travel embargo on Cuba was "a huge mistake for democratic interests." (International Socialist, Reuters, 20/10/03)

October 24, 2003: Members of State Security Department threatened the family of Roberto de Miranda Hernández, an independent educator sanctioned to 20 years in prison during the summary trials of last April, with imprisonment. Miranda's son denounced the statement made by military police that they will arrest his mother "if she continues to challenge the government in favor of my father's liberation and the liberation of rest of the 74 dissidents." (Puente Informativo, 24/10/03)

October 23, 2003: The British Parliament approved a resolution in support of political prisoners in Cuba. "..the Cuban Government continues to hold several hundred political prisoners, whose offences include pro-democracy activism and speaking out against Government policies on issues such as abortion and treatment of the blind". The resolution further notes that among the most prominent cases are human rights activists Dr Oscar Biscet, Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva and Jorge Garcia Perez, all three of whom were arrested after peaceful protests. The note calls upon the Cuban Government to allow peaceful protest on human rights and pro-democracy issues, to release all those held for such activities, and to cease from applying pressure on them or their families; and "urges Her Majesty's Government to place these issues at the core of bilateral talks" (Puente Informativo, 23/10/03)

October 20, 2003: In Frankfurt, the German section of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) called for the release in Cuba of two union leaders arrested for handing out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Cuban police arrested and accused Giordis Enrique Mendoza Ruíz and Orlando Carlos García Pérez of distributing "counterrevolutionary documents." (AFP, 20/10/03)

October 20, 2003: Reporters Without Borders has published its second world press freedom ranking. Second from last in the ranking, Cuba is today the world's biggest prison for journalists, according to the organization. (Europa Press, 20/10/03)

October 17, 2003: The Spanish newspaper El Mundo granted Raúl Rivero its Annual Award for his contribution to freedom of the press on the island. Rivero shared the award Columnists of El Mundo with his Moroccan colleague Alí Lmrabet, sentenced to four years in prison for allegedly offending the King. (El Nuevo Herald, 18/10/03)

October 15, 2003: Cuba considers the recent treatment of a Cuban deputy minister by the Spanish Embassy in Havana both impolite and humiliating. In a breach of protocol, the diplomat was told to meet with the Spanish ambassador in order to obtain a visa to travel to Madrid. A Cuban Foreign Affairs Ministry (MINREX) note states that the Spanish Embassy informed the Higher Education Ministry that to receive this visa, it was necessary that the deputy minister meet personally with the ambassador. Deputy Minister Alarcon, who could not attend the activities scheduled in Spain, went to Great Britain where he is meeting with British rectors at the invitation of London Metropolitan University. (Prensa Latina, 15/10/03)

October 14, 2003: According to the vice director of the Spanish Diplomatic Information Office, Manuel Salazar, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not request an interview with Cuban vice minister of Education, Rodolfo Alarcón, as conditional on extending him a visa entry into Spain. Salazar said that the visa was not extended because the Cuban embassy withdrew both Alarcón's passport and his visa application form. However, the Cuban ambassador to Spain, Isabel Allende, reiterated to the press that Spanish authorities made an interview with Alarcón at the Spanish embassy in Havana conditional on extending the visa. (Europa Press, 14/10/03)

October 13, 2003: Relations between Cuba and the European Union are "frozen", Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister said. In Pérez Roque's opinion, the attitude that Havana has perceived in Latin America "stresses even more the isolation of the European Union's (EU) policy towards Cuba. Cuba does not feel isolated; Cuba feels that it has the support of the European peoples." Pérez Roque believes that - encouraged by the governments of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Italy - the EU has "given in" to US policy, but noted that his country would like to maintain normal relations with the 15-nation bloc. (Notimex, 13/10/03)

October 12, 2003: Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1998, Portuguese José Saramago, declared, "I have not broken with Cuba," in a interview with journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde in Spain, published by Juventud Rebelde newspaper. Among a series of questions at the end of the interview, Elizalde asked about the IMF ("the owners of the money") and Cuba. "I have not broken with Cuba," Saramago declared. "I am still a friend of the Cuban people, but I reserve the right to say what I feel and to say it when I think I should do so." (Prensa Latina, 13/10/03)

October 12, 2003: The wives of jailed Cuban dissidents requested a meeting with Argentine Foreign Minister to inform him about their husbands' "deplorable prison conditions" and to ask him to intercede on their behalf during his visit to the island (El Nuevo Herald, 12/10/03)

October 12, 2003: To commemorate the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America, Spanish Ambassador Jesús Gracia, met at his residency in Havana, with political dissidents and human rights campaigners whose groups were repressed in a brutal crackdown earlier this year. Among the Spanish ambassador's guests were Christian Liberation Movement head Oswaldo Payá; Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo of the Change for Cuba group, and Elizardo Sánchez, a human rights campaigner who has been smeared in the government-controlled press as a "paid informer" Also present were some of wives of some of the 75 independent journalists, peaceful dissidents and rights activists who were rounded up this past spring. (EFE, 12/10/03)

October 10, 2003: The organization of Cuban exiles Asociación Cubanos por la Libertad (ACL) delivers a statement to be sent to the United Nations asking for the release of all political prisoners in Cuba. (Press Release, 10/10/03)

October 9: Former socialist French Prime Minister, Laurent Fabius, decided to sponsor Cuban journalist an poet Raúl Rivero, the most emblematic dissident of the 75 who were detained by Castro's regime last March. Fabius, who in July took part in the weekly demonstrations organized near the Cuban embassy in Paris, agreed to sponsor Rivero as part of a campaign to obtain from French senators and members of parliament "as much support as possible" for the imprisoned dissidents. (AFP, 9/10/03)

October 7, 2003: Former presidents of Poland, Lech Walesa; the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel; and of Hungary, Arpad Goncz, affirmed that "the last wave of confrontations accompanied by an anti European diatribe from the Cuban political leadership can only be seen as an expression of weakness and desperation" on the part of Fidel Castro's regime. (Notimex, 7/10/03)

October 6, 2003: The leader of liberal democrats of the European Parliament, Graham Watson, supported Cuban dissident Osvaldo Payá's initiative of delivering signatures to the Cuban government to bring about reforms, as part of the Varela Project. (Notimex, 6/10/03)

October 6, 2003: The European Commission has asked the Cuban government to consider the new batch of signatures submitted in support of the Varela Project -- a "legal" initiative within the Cuban constitutional framework -- said to the media Chris Patten, commissioner in charge of foreign relations. (Europa Press, 6/10/03)

October 4, 2003: Cuba said it wanted better relations with the European Union, but insisted that as long as the EU did not review its anti-Cuba stand, relations would not reach the levels they once had. That was the core of the message delivered by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Peréz Roque, during the last day of debates of the 11th International Conference of European Studies, a week-long event that gathered over 50 academics and experts from 15 countries here in Havana. "Our hope is that there is rectification, a serious discussion that could lead relations along a path of respect and cooperation. We want to have relations with Europe, we are not pleased not to have them, but we also have moral values, we have principles, we have the right to be respected," said Pérez Roque, noting that Cuba "honestly believe(s) that, in the current situation, the governments of the European Union have not acted with enough maturity, good will, and open-mindedness that this situation required". (Radio Habana Cuba, 4/10/03)

October 2, 2003: The president of the Cuban National Assembly (Parliament), Ricardo Alarcón, criticized the EU position on the US-Cuba conflict. Alarcón, who was participating in debates of the 11th International Conference on European Studies, regretted what he considers "a change" on the EU position towards Cuba. "The Torricelli Act has now become more a European law than a US one", emphasized Alarcón, during a special speech to Cuban and foreigners attending a European Studies Conference. (EFE, Granma International, 2/10/03)

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