Cubasource

December 29, 2003: Cuban independent journalist Bernardo Arévalo Padrón, who spent six years behind bars, has been released, news sources announced. Arévalo said he was released from prison on November 13. He thanked the Inter American Press Association for denouncing his imprisonment and applying international pressure for his release. ''The IAPA campaign saved my life,'' he told the press. (The Miami Herald, 30/12/03)

December 23, 2003: Seventy-five opponents of Fidel Castro's government will spend a bleak Christmas behind bars after being imprisoned in March, their relatives and supporters say. "Cuban political prisoners are confined in punishment cells and are living in conditions even animals should not be subjected to," Oswaldo Paya, leader of Cuba's Christian Liberation Movement, said in a statement calling attention to the dissidents' plight. Cuban authorities have provided no information on the conditions under which the prisoners are being held. (Reuters, 24/12/03)

December 19, 2003: Reporters Without Borders voiced concern about its correspondent in Cuba, Ricardo González Alfonso, who began a hunger strike in prison on 8 December to press his demand not to be held in a cell with non-political detainees. "We hold the Cuban government responsible for our correspondent's health," the organisation said, noting that several journalists have recently been transferred to cells with non-political detainees where they risk being the victims of violence from their cell mates, sometimes instigated by the authorities. (Europa Press, 19/12/03)

December 18, 2003: The wives of Cuban dissidents released in Havana an open letter to international figures and organizations expressing gratitude for their solidarity with the 75 sentenced dissidents. Miriam Leiva, wife of economist Oscar Espinosa who is serving a 20-year sentence, said the letter intends to "thank all those who have supported us for the tokens of solidarity received during the past several months." (EFE, 19/12/03)

December 18, 2003: Cuban political prisoners have spoken out against the "brutal beating" one of their colleagues received at a jail east of Havana, and are asking international rights groups and foreign governments to intervene on their behalf. In a note sent to their relatives, the jailed dissidents said: "Inmate Aldolfo Fernandez was given a brutal beating by a trustee in charge of 'discipline' named Fidel" at the Holguin provincial prison "This is how the prison guards make good on their threats" against the prisoners, said the note, which was forwarded to international news media by Cuba's outlawed Christian Liberation Movement (CLM) headed by activist Oswaldo Paya. Jailed dissidents Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, Arnaldo Ramos Lauzerique and Alfredo Dominguez Batista "have suffered similar reprisals," the note added. (EFE, 18/12/03)

December 16, 2003: Beatriz del Carmen Pedroso, wife of Julio César Gálvez, a dissident journalist detained last March and sentenced to 15 years in prison, said she's having difficulty receiving correspondence from her husband. "The delays mean months; I have not as of yet received letters my husband sent me in July," indicated Beatriz. (Noticias Pro Cuba Libre, 16/12/03)

December 16, 2003: Carlos Alberto Domínguez, arrested in February for paying tribute in public to the four Brothers to the Rescue pilots who were shot down by the Castro regime, has been declared a prisoner of conscience. Amnesty International has declared Dominguez Gonzalez a prisoner of conscience detained for the non-violent exercise of his rights to freedom of expression and association, and has called for his immediate and unconditional release. Dominguez Gonzalez and his family have been granted visas to enter the United States but the Cuban government has categorically denied their exit permits. (Puente Informativo, 17/12/03)

December 15, 2003: It is reported that Cuba and the European Union had contacts aimed at reestablishing normal relations. The sources say that Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque had a meeting with ambassadors from Belgium, Portugal and Greece. These countries have not officially invited Cuban dissidents to their national celebrations. Sources say that the minister proposed to the EU ambassadors a number of changes on Cuba's position towards human rights, if dissidents are not invited to official activities in European embassies. The changes that Cuba might initiate include the signing of a UN convention on economic and social rights, an indefinite moratorium of the death penalty, and allowing European diplomats to visit the jails where political prisoners are been kept. (Europa Press, 15/12/03)

December 14, 2003: Cuba 's Foreign Ministry has told some European diplomats there's no need for Christmas gift-giving this year. The most recent rebuke is yet another sign of how badly relations have deteriorated between the island and the EU, Cuba's top trading partner. In diplomatic circles it's widely known as the "cocktail war,'' where some European diplomats are routinely frozen out of official Cuban functions. "They communicated to us that given the circumstances we should abstain from sending Christmas gifts to Cuban officials," a European diplomat said. "Anything we send will be returned," a diplomat from another embassy added. (Sun Sentinel, 14/15/03)

December 11, 2003: Elsa Morejon, wife of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez, was informed by the head Official of Kilo 8 Prison where this physician is confined, that her husband is punished once more in a cell for refusing to stand up to acknowledge the presence of prison guards and officials during the recount of prisoners. Mrs. Morejon hasn't seen her husband since August 2003. (Coalition of Cuban American Women, 11/12/03)

December 11, 2003: At least 60 members of the French National Assembly, from different political tendencies, have sponsored an equal number of jailed Cuban dissidents following an initiative launched by the Paris based Colectivo Solidaridad Cuba Libre. The information was made known by President and Founder of the Asociación por la Tercera República Cubana (ATREC), the Cuban-born William Navarrete. (Europa Press, 11/12/03)

December 10, 2003: The Bolivian edition of the book "Los Disidentes" (The Dissidents), a compilation of testimonies of "Cuban agents infiltrated in US-financed groups", was presented at the headquarters of the Association (College) of Journalists of La Paz. The presentation of the book, written by the Cuban journalists Luis Báez and Rosa Miriam Elizalde, was held on the 55th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Prensa Latina, 11/12/03)

December 10, 2003: Cuban opposition leaders and relatives of jailed activists say Havana has made no moves to improve its human rights record, and in fact, the communist island's treatment of dissidents was getting worse every day. Despite their complaints and condemnations, the situation for the jailed activists "continues to be deplorable," Gisela Delgado, the wife of dissident Hector Palacios - who was sentenced to 25 years, told the press. Neither Delgado nor Miriam Leyva, the wife of jailed economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, who received a 20-year sentence, said the situation was likely to improve over the next few months. Both of the jailed activists' wives took part in a day of fasting and prayer on International Human Rights Day that was organized to demand the release of all political prisoners on the island. (EFE, 10/12/03)

December 10, 2003: Reporters Without Borders has condemned the harsh jail conditions of Cuban journalists and dissidents and accused the authorities of setting them up for attack by fellow prisoners, after journalist Adolfo Fernández Saínz was beaten unconscious by a cell mate. The protest came as journalists and dissidents went on a one-day hunger strike to mark International Human Rights day, to draw attention to their plight. (El Nuevo Herald, 12/12/03)

December 9, 2003: Cuban political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez, "Antúnez", who is in solitary confinement in Ariza's prison, in Cienfuegos province, has been on a hunger strike since late November. Antúnez is demanding that all political prisoners be transferred to prisons closer to their homes. He demands from multilateral institutions that Cuba's government be expelled from their meetings. The prisoner is also demanding better food, medical assistance, and an end to cruel treatment in jail. (Cubanet, 9/12/03)

December 7, 2003: Greek-French filmmaker Constantin Costa-Gavras expressed his satisfaction for the acknowledgment that Havana's Latin American Film Festival dedicated to his work. Costa Gavras arrived in Havana for the exhibition of his controversial film "Amen". Answering questions from the press about the crackdown on dissidents and the execution of three hijackers in late April, the filmmaker said that he expressed his "concerns about the death penalty" to his Cubans friends. "As a European, I am against the death penalty, and against any violation of human rights and freedom", he said. "That is not something easy to accept." "I tried to search for answers and received some". "Others were not acceptable," he added. (Reuters, 7/12/03)

December 6, 2003: The United States is demanding that Cuba immediately release a dissident who was arrested last year for trying to organize an event marking Human Rights Day. The State Department made the demand as it noted the anniversary of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet's arrest on December 6, 2002. He and nine other opposition activists were arrested at the same time. (VOA, 6/12/03)

December 1, 2003: At least seven of the 75 dissidents sent to jail last March are on a hunger strike in a prison in the province of Pinar del Rio, in protest of the "inhumane" conditions of their incarceration, according to relatives and human rights activists in Havana. (El País, 2/12/03)