July 28, 2004: Cuban dissident Diosdado Gonzalez Marrero, one of the 75 Fidel Castro opponents sentenced to lengthy prison terms a year ago, has spent more than two months in a confinement cell for demanding his "prisoner of conscience" status be respected, his wife said. Alejandrina Garcia de la Riva told the press that her husband, sentenced to 20 years, "has been punished for 64 days in a confined cell, without proper access to food, sun or water fit to drink." Garcia said that prison authorities in Pinar del Rio, west of Havana, told her that her husband will remain in the confinement cell if he refuses to get along with other prisoners. According to Garcia, Cuban penitentiary regulations stipulate that a prisoner can only be confined to these special cells for a maximum of 21 days and "my husband has served that three times over." "He does not wish to be with other prisoners, but rather treated as a prisoner of conscience," Garcia told the press in a telephone interview from her home in Matanzas, east of Havana. (EFE, 28/7/04)
July 26, 2004: Political prisoner, Jorge Luis García Pérez 'Antúnez', initiated a hunger strike after prison authorities took away all his belongins, including his clothes. He has been kept in an isolation cell, in the Ariza prison, since last September. Last July, the prisoner was harshly beaten during a family visit by prison guards in front of his relatives. (EFE, 26/7/04)
July 25, 2004: Esther Germán Valdéz, wife of Cuban dissisident René Montes de Oca Martija, leader of the Cuban Pro Human Rights Party affiliated to the Andrei Sajarov Foundation, stated that her husband was arrested in their home. After Montes de Oca's was released from prison back in October of 2003, where he served a three-year sentence for public activities against the Castro regime, he wrote a public letter to Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, promoter of the Varela Project, where he publicly recognized the popularity the project had achieved amongst the general population, and openly announced collaboration with the Varela Project and with any other effort geared towards the democratization of the Island. (Lux Info Press, 25/7/04)
July 22, 2004: Osvaldo Payá, dissident leader of Movimiento Cristiano Liberación (MCL) and promoter of the Varela Project, denounced that Daniel Pereira García, MCL’s delegate in Palma Soriano, Oriente, was arrested, after being a victim of a home invasion that lasted three hours. At the time of his arrest, Pereira García was actively participating in a non-stop campaign of recollection of signatures in support of the Varela Project. (Puente Informativo, 22/7/04)
July 22, 2004: Human rights activist in Isla de la Juventud, Rafael Millet Leiva, has been kept in prison for over 18 months without charges. "In spite that he has been in prison all this time, the prosecutor has not presented charges”, his wife, María de los Angeles Cruz Batista, said. “Nobody knows why he is supposed to be judged”, she added. (Cubanet, 22/7/04)
July 22, 2004: Cuba freed dissident economist Martha Beatriz Roque, the only woman among 75 people arrested 16 months ago in a crackdown on dissent. Roque, the most prominent dissident to be released this year by Fidel Castro's government, was surprised. "I didn't expect to be let out. I will continue my opposition work. They can't change my ideas," she told reporters at the home of a relative in central Havana. The 58-year-old dissident said she had spent the last year in a military hospital suffering from diabetes, hypertension and heart problems and was released on health grounds. "The government must free all the political prisoners," she said. "This is the government's way of saying it will be more flexible. But until all 75 are in the street we cannot call it a gesture," said Roque, who thanked international efforts to press Cuba to free its dissidents. (Reuters, 22/7/04)
July 21, 2004: The US government expressed concern over the treatment of jailed Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet, who has been placed in solitary confinement. Biscet was arrested on December 6, 2002, at his home, where - according to US officials - he was holding a discussion on human rights, and later convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. A communique released by the US State Department said Biscet, whose health has significantly deteriorated, "has been forced to live on handouts from fellow prisoners because regime authorities refuse to permit his wife to bring in the meager rations of food and medicine that are allowed other prisoners." (EFE, 21/7/04)
July 21, 2004: Dolia Leal Francisco, wife of Cuban political prisoner Nelson Aguiar Ramirez, denounced the Cuban government’s attempts to keep her and other wives and mothers of political prisoners, called “Ladies in White”, away from campaigning for the liberation of their loved ones. “After 16 months without any telephone communication, the military command at the Provincial Prison of Guantanamo decided that the call with my husband would be every Sunday at 10 a.m., but every Sunday at that time I go to the Church of St. Rita. It is my obligation and my duty to go and to walk down Fifth Avenue with the wives dressed in white and call for the liberation of all political prisoners, because they are innocent,” said Leal. Laura Pollan, wife of political prisoner Hector Maseda Gutierrez, also said that she was called from the prison La Pendiente in Villa Clara, where her husband is being kept, about changing their calls to Sunday mornings, too. (Netfor Cuba, 22/7/04)
July 21, 2004: According to information provided by political prisoner Randy Cabrera Mayor, from the prison Combinado de Guantánamo, there are over 200 prisoners in isolation suffering from Tuberculosis. Cabrera Mayor said that these prisoners are not receiving proper food or medical attention to combat this disease. (Puente Informativo, 22/7/04)
July 21, 2004: Political prisoner Fabio Prieto Llorente, incarcerated in Kilo 8 prison, in Camagüey province, joined a hunger strike initiated by criminal prisoners. The prison population at Kilo 8 was demanding full respect to their rights and the fulfillment of benefits under the prison's internal regulations. (Cubanet, 21/7/04)
July 20, 2004: Cuban exile and Spanish organizations have called for a demonstration in front of the Cuban embassy in Madrid requesting the release of political prisoners in the island. The groups’ spokesman, Miguel Angel García Puñales, made the call trying to summon Plataforma Cuba Democracia ¡Ya! to the protest. The wife of dissident imprisoned, Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, warned one of the organizations involved in the call that her husband’s health is at risk due to bad conditions in jail. (Europa Press, 20/7/04)
July 19, 2004: Relatives of dissident imprisoned Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello have denounced her poor health situation. Roque Cabello has been kept hospitalized at Havana’s military hospital "Carlos J. Finlay, but her situation has turned worse. Roque Cabello suffers from a severe condition of the parotid glands. After paying a visit to her aunt, her niece, María de los Ángeles Falcón Cabello, complained about the bad medical treatment Roque Cabello is receiving at this Havana hospital. (Cubanet, 19/7/04)
July 18, 2004: Political prisoner Santiago Cutín Aguilera, who is serving a nine-year sentence in the prison Combinado de Guantánamo for an alleged crime of trying to leave the country using illegally means, was brutally beaten by prison guards. Cutín Aguilera protested for the poor alimentary condition, as well as the abuses perpetrated against the political prisoners, at the Guantánamo prison, and three guards brutally punched him on his jaw and his mouth, removing all of his teeth in the brutal beating. (Puente Informativo, 26/7/04)
July 15, 2004: The European Council of Ministers issued a press release on behalf of the European Union concerning the release of political dissidents in Cuba. The statement says that, “The European Union welcomes the recent releases of political dissidents imprisoned in Cuba, which come as a positive gesture by the Cuban authorities. It would nevertheless point out that the aim continues to be the immediate release of all political prisoners”. (EU Press Releases, 15/7/04)
July 12, 2004: The number of political prisoners held in Cuba remained nearly constant over the past six months, according to a report released by a rights group. The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation reported that at mid year there were 317 political prisoners held in Cuba, slightly up from the 315 reported at the end of 2003. "The fact that the total number of prisoners in this category has not significantly dropped shows the government's position of immobility," wrote Elizardo Sanchez, the head of the Havana-based commission. The commission said it did not remove from its list the names of six dissidents paroled for medical reasons in recent weeks because they were not released unconditionally and could be returned to custody if they violate parole. (AP, 12/7/04)
July 9, 2004: Political and prisoner of conscience Normando Hernandez Gonzalez continues to be held in a punishment cell after having already spent 54 days in it. His wife, Yarai Reyes Marin, spoke via telephone with the prison's chief of internal order, who refused to give his name. He told Yarai that her husband, as well as Diosdado Gonzalez Marrero, Leonel Grave de Peralta and Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, will continue in their punishment cells in Kilo 5 1/2 prison in the province of Pinar del Rio for 21 more days, for refusing to be transferred to a cell with common prisoners, where their lives are in danger. (MarporCuba, 9/7/04)
July 8, 2004: Over a month ago, members of the illegal dissident organization Movimiento Liberal Cubano were arrested and sent to Villa Marista, the political police headquarters in Havana, without any notice to their relatives about the charges against them. José Lorenzo Pérez Fidalgo and Alexis Triana Montesinos, both residents of El Diezmero, Havana, were detained by National Police forces and the State Security Department agents. Their relatives have denounced that they still do not know about the charges against their loved ones, nor about their situation. (Cubanet, 8/7/04)
July 7, 2004: Imprisoned dissident Jorge Luis Garcia Pérez ''Antunez'' was hardly beaten by prison authorities in front of his relatives, a Cuban American organization based in Miami denounced. In a statement made public to the press, Directorio Democratico Cubano says that several guards from the Ariza provincial prison, Camagüey, attacked Antúnez after he requested from the prison guards that letters of support from different countries were given to his sister. "He was brutally beaten on the floor." "They put him handcuffs on each hand and was dragged from opposite sides, so he began bleeding and having difficulties breathing", Antunez' sister, Bertha, told members of the Directorio. According to Bertha Antúnez, her brother had requested the letters that the State Security has been keeping without having delivered them. (El Nuevo Herald, 7/7/04)
