December 27: A news release of the Miami-based Cuban Democratic Directorate criticized the temporary arrest of several young promoters of university autonomy, between December 23 and 26 in Guantánamo. Dozens of police citations and threats against dissidents were also reported. (EER, 27/12/07)
December 19: Independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas Hernández was detained by State Security agents in Santa Clara. An officer informed Fariñas that he had orders to warn him verbally against espionage activities as, based on information received, it had been his idea to photograph Cuban jails and to display them in an exhibition on prisoners and Cuban prisons at the head office of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation. Fariñas explained that the images were taken from the Internet, using the Google search engine. (Cubanet, 28/12/07)
December 18: A leading Cuban dissident has called on Cuba's parliament to grant an amnesty to non-violent political prisoners and to allow Cubans to travel freely. Oswaldo Paya said his petitions were made on "human, not political terms". Mr Paya, one of Cuba's most prominent dissidents, delivered two petitions to the National Assembly in Havana. The petition calls for the release of all "peaceful" prisoners of conscience, many of whom are suffering bad health, Mr Paya said. (BBC, 19/12/07)
December 13: Spaniard Manuel Benito del Valle, who fled Cuba after receiving slight injuries while taking part in an opposition protest, returned to Spain satisfied with the effects of the march but concerned over reprisals that his Cuban friends could suffer at the hands of the island's communist regime. The 29-year-old told the press he participated in what was supposed to be a peaceful and silent procession - International Human Rights Day - in front of the UN mission in Havana. Del Valle, who studied in Cuba on a scholarship from Spain's Instituto de Comercio Exterior, said he returned to the communist-ruled island using the diplomatic visa provided by the institute "because if I would have asked for a tourist visa, they would have denied it because of my relationship with the Cuban dissidence movement." About a dozen demonstrators came to the site of the march surrounded by police and as they began marching "a mob of some 200 people, half of them members of State Security and the other half citizens recruited from workers committees, surrounded us and began pushing, hitting and threatening us," Del Valle recounted. Several people pushed him and his Cuban friend Milena Almira to a nearby street, stopped a car that came along and forced them to get in with a driver "who didn't know anything about what had happened." Shortly afterwards, they got out of the car, after learning that the driver had been sent to the scene by police, and took refuge in a hotel. (EFE, 13/12/07)
December 12: Doctor Oscar Elías Biscet and journalist Normando Hernández González, both serving lengthy prison sentences in Cuba, were honoured with the Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt Medal for their work promoting human rights in Cuba. The jury, including among others Nobel Peace Prize laureate Henry Kissinger and former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, picked these two representatives of “the black spring" of 2003 – when they were sentenced together with other 73 dissidents – for the severity of their sentences and their poor health conditions. (El Nuevo Herald, 13/12/07)
December 11: An extensive photo display of political prisoners and Cuban detention centers has come to an end. Organized by the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation and the Non-governmental Observatory of Prisons in Havana, the exhibit opened on December 6 in the head offices of these organizations in the home of Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz, in Playa. Many dissidents, journalists, and diplomats accredited in Havana, visited the exhibit. (Cubanet, 13/12/07)
December 11: Francina Vila, one of eight political activists from Spain's Catalonia region expelled from Cuba after taking part in a human rights demonstration, said they are glad to have drawn attention to the situation in the country. In statements broadcast on Spanish National Radio, Vila said they “wanted to draw attention, and in fact we're very glad because we met with a bigger response than we expected," said Vila . "We knew that, if we carried out this kind of action in Cuba, at some point or other they could arrest us or - as was the case - keep us shut up in our hotel without the chance of going out." Vila and seven other members of the Catalan nationalist party Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) were detained in their hotels in Havana, after returning from a march by the Ladies in White, a group of relatives of jailed Cuban dissidents, the radio recalled. (BBC, 11/12/07)
December 11: Cuban state media justified the break up of a protest march it said was the product of "frenetic subversive activity" by US officials trying to undermine the island's communist system. Scores of government supporters directed by men with walkie-talkies shoved and shouted down a dozen dissidents during a march at a park on International Human Rights Day. No injuries were reported. About half of the marchers were seen being taken away by plainclothes officials, though most were quickly released and it was unknown if any had been officially arrested. "The government of the United States incited and sponsored new provocations against the dignity of the Cuban people," the Communist Party daily Granma said, referring to the December 10 march and another on December 9. A separate but similar story ran in the Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde. (AP, 11/12/07)
December 11: Amnesty International welcomed the announcement made by Cuba's Minister of Foreign Affairs that the country will soon ratify key human rights treaties. But it added that this move will only be meaningful if matched by change in Cuba's policies of intimidation and arbitrary arrests of political dissidents. Kerrie Howard, Deputy Director at Amnesty International's Americas Programme said: “The Cuban government must signal its true commitment to human rights treaties by acting to release all those detained solely for their peaceful political activities and ensuring that all human rights are respected and promoted across the country”. The Cuban government's announcement coincided with an increasing crackdown against dissidents between 21 November and 10 December - UN Human Rights Day - when many political dissidents were arbitrarily arrested because of their involvement in peaceful protests (…) “Every time someone in Cuba is arrested or imprisoned solely for their human rights work or their opinions, it sends a strong message to all human rights organizations that their work will not be tolerated,” said Kerrie Howard. (AI Press Release, 12/12/07)
December 10: Cuba said it will accept regular UN monitoring of its human rights record as of 2009. Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque announced Cuba will sign the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and a similar pact on economic and social rights by March next year. Havana has long refused to sign the pacts adopted in 1976 at the height of the Cold War. He said Cuba would open its doors in early 2009 to regular international scrutiny by the newly created UN Human Rights Council. Cuba refused visits by a special rapporteur appointed by the previous body, the UN Human Rights Commission, which Havana said was manipulated by the United States. "This decision reflects our desire for full cooperation with the United Nations on the basis of respect for our national sovereignty and the right of the Cuban people to their self-determination," Perez Roque said at a news conference. (Reuters, 10/12/07)
December 10: Ten Spanish women were being held by Cuban police at their hotel in Havana after attending a protest staged by dissidents, a youth organization said in Barcelona, Spain. Police took away the passports of the women, who were members of the youth wing of the Catalan regionalist party CDC in Spain. It was expected that the women, who included a Barcelona city councillor, would shortly be expelled from the island. The women had travelled to the island to back dissidents in what they described as attempts to achieve democracy and human rights. The women joined a march of some 50 Cuban women belonging to a group called Ladies in White, which campaigns for the release of 75 dissidents jailed in 2003. (M&C, 10/12/07)
December 10: Jorge Mas Santos, Chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation, issued a statement praising the demonstrations by Cuban dissidents in Havana on International Human Rights Day. “The noticeable increase in activities among the human rights community in Cuba, the way in which many ordinary Cubans are lending their voices and signatures to campaigns, is a clear demonstration that Cubans desire change and that they are not going to be satisfied with more of the same,” said Mas Santos. (CANF Press Release, 10/12/07)
December 10: Government supporters shoved and shouted down activists calling for improved human rights on communist-run Cuba. There were no reports of injuries, and it was not clear whether marchers taken away had been arrested. A few international journalists were roughed up by counter-protesters, but did not require medical attention. Several march organizers were picked up before the event, evidently in an attempt to prevent it, according to a caller who identified himself as Carlos Bosch, communications secretary of the Independent Democrat Front. The scene at a park in the Vedado neighborhood was similar to International Human Rights Day protests in past years. Only 14 protesters turned up, and they were shouted down and pushed by a pro-government group of more than 100 people, guided by men with walkie-talkies. Dozens of people in plain clothes assembled in the nearby park, anticipating the protest that began when a veteran activist, Dr. Darsi Ferrer, locked arms with four others and marched silently along the park's perimeter. Their ranks eventually grew to 14. The counter-protesters shouted "traitors!" and "mercenaries!" and occasionally shoved them. "Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!" the counter protesters chanted, in support of ailing leader Fidel Castro. When government supporters started to get rough, several young men who appeared to be leading the counter-protest called them off, saying, "Easy, comrades, easy. Don't hit. Don't push. That's what they want." At least five people -- including Ferrer and his wife -- were pushed into cars. Cuba maintains that it respects human rights better than most countries by providing its people with a broad social safety net that includes free medical care, low-cost food and heavily subsidized utilities and other services. (AP, 10/12/07)
December 9: The Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) condemned the detention of at least ten dissidents. "Between yesterday and today at least ten dissidents have been detained in connection with activities in Havana on the occasion of International Human Rights Day," said Elizardo Sánchez, president of the CCDHRN. (EER, 10/12/07)
December 9: Fifty female relatives of Cuban political prisoners marched to National Assembly headquarters demanding the release of their loved ones and braving insults and jeers from government supporters. December 10 is International Human Rights Day and the group, known as the "Ladies in White," said the protest was a prelude to other activities designed to draw attention to abuses by the island's Communist authorities. "We are here to demand our prisoners' freedom and so the government understands it's punishing innocent people," said Miriam Leiva, wife of recently freed dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe. The women, dressed in white and holding flowers, marched some 20 blocks through the busy streets of Havana's Miramar district to parliament headquarters, where a crowd of government supporters gathered and returned their chants of "freedom" with shouts of "mercenaries" and "worms." The hostile crowd followed the women for a few blocks as they marched back to Santa Rita Church, where they have held a weekly Sunday vigil since a 2003 crackdown on dissent landed dozens of anti-government activists in prison. A group of 15 young women from Latin America and Europe with banners that read "democracy" and "freedom" joined the protesters at the church. (Reuters, 9/12/07)
December 9: Pastors Delmides Fidalgo López and Damaris Velásquez Arévalo were arrested and taken to the police station in Buenaventura, Holguin province, by State Security agents. They were interrogated and threatened with jail if they continued posting allegorical signs to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the front walls of their home. Fidalgo López said that while he and his wife Damaris were in custody, a mob raided their house, destroyed the copies of the Human Rights Declaration and insulted his 14-year-old daughter. (Cubanet, 17/12/07)
December 7: The assistant secretary of the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops has criticized a recent police raid on a church in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, saying it could harm the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Cuban government. Monsignor José Félix Pérez Riera described the raid, which led to the arrest of a group of dissidents, as a "deplorable incident." He added, "It is to be hoped that [the raid] does not damage relations, and I believe that we should all do our utmost to keep this from happening." Pérez Riera said the bishop's conference has not made an official declaration, nor has it approached the authorities to discuss the matter, because this is the prerogative of the archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio García, who is personally looking into it. Pérez Riera is the parish priest of the Havana church of Santa Rita, where Sunday mass is attended weekly by the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) -- the wives, mothers and other relatives of 75 dissidents who received harsh sentences in 2003, on charges of conspiracy with the United States to subvert the Cuban state. "There has never been any trouble, for which I am thankful, because these ladies are completely respectful -- they come to mass and behave impeccably. They have always carried out any political demonstrations outside the sanctuary," he said. (IPS, 7/12/07)
December 7: Dissident groups in Cuba said harassment and detentions by police have recently increased as part of a new tactic by the authorities. Rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said he believed the aim was to deter dissidents from marking International Human Rights Day on 10 December. The number of political prisoners in Cuba has fallen since Raul Castro, brother of President Fidel Castro, took over as acting president on 31 July 2006, according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and Reconciliation. But the group, illegal but tolerated by the authorities, says there has been a marked increase in police activity in recent weeks. Its head, Elizardo Sanchez, said the authorities were using a new tactic which he called "preventative repression". "For example, if a group is going to meet in a house or park, they will detain people so they can't get there," Mr Sanchez said. "Before, it wasn't so subtle, just pure hard repression, straight to prison. Now the authorities are being more careful." A column in the Communist Party newspaper Granma criticized international journalists in Havana for covering events by dissident groups, which authorities here dismiss as ''mercenaries'' funded by the US and other governments to undermine state authority. (BBC, AP, 7/12/07)
December 6: The Catholic archbishop of the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba said that authorities apologized for the actions of police in entering church grounds to arrest protesters."(The authorities) said they regretted how events had unfolded, they apologized and (said) that circumstances such as those should be avoided and should not occur," Monsignor Dionisio Garcia Ibañez told the press by telephone. The Catholic Church and the island's communist authorities spoke about the incident, which occurred on the grounds of the Church of Santa Teresita, in a conversation that Garcia Ibañez said was "fruitful." According to the archbishop, police officers arrested five people on the grounds of the church and six others in the street, figures that the banned Cuban Commission for Human Rights, or CCDHRN, raised to a total of more than 20. Garcia Ibañez, who noted that the incident transpired on the church grounds and not inside the sanctuary, said that "it's the first time that an event of this kind has occurred" and that the 11 arrested people, among whom were two women, had been released from police custody. He said that he had spoken about the matter with the head of the Department of Religious Affairs of the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee, Caridad Diego, and with party officials at the provincial level. "We are evaluating the events. They apologized for the situation insofar as the authorities were concerned," said Garcia Ibañez, who has been archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, the island's second-biggest city, for the past seven months. (EFE, La Jornada, Reuters, 7/12/07)
December 5: At least 127 journalists worldwide are behind bars, and one in six have never been publicly charged with a crime, according to an annual survey by a press freedom group. The Committee to Protect Journalists said its yearly census found the number of jailed journalists has dropped by only seven from the previous year. There was an increase in the proportion of journalists held without any charge. Journalists are being held by 24 countries, most in places notorious for their intolerance of the press. Twenty-nine were being held in China, including many accused of publishing pamphlets criticizing the government. Other frequent jailers of journalists include Cuba, Eritrea, Iran and Azerbaijan, according to the advocacy group. (AP, 5/12/07)
December 5: Outstanding German politicians, including the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, and the minister-president of the federal state of Sarre, Peter Müller, took on the patronage of Cuban political prisoners, whose freedom they will demand personally and individually before Cuban authorities. Members of the Bundestag and of the European Parliament have also joined this initiative promoted by the International Society for Human Rights (IGFM). (EER, 5/12/07)
December 5: A spokesman for Cuba's Catholic Bishops Conference said the police action inside a Santiago de Cuba church was "unusual" and "very regrettable," adding that he hoped it proves to be "a very isolated incident." Santiago de Cuba Archbishop Dionisio Garcia also voiced concern. "We're not used to this. I had no idea uniformed police could do that (…) we're talking now to avoid such incidents in future," he said, adding he would meet with government officials. Conrado Rodriguez, the priest at Santa Teresita church, where a group of activists were detained, said that as the dissidents were rounded up, he told the police: "I want you to explain to me what is going on here, because I don't understand anything. How is this act of violence possible?" (AFP, 5/12/07)
December 4: Up to eighteen human rights activists were arrested in Santiago de Cuba for marching to demand the release of three students under arrest since November 29. The activists arrested were marching to demand the release of Rolando Rodríguez, Eliecer Consuegra and Gerardo Sánchez. These three students were arrested two days after they presented a petition backed by 5,000 signatures to education authorities asking for autonomy in universities and free expression rights in student precincts. According to Mirta Echevarría, the step daughter of Sánchez Ortega, the 18 activists held a fast at her place, in Santiago de Cuba, and later went to the church of Santa Teresita holding posters with signs saying, “I do not collaborate with the dictatorship”. State Security officials surrounded the group when the activists were leaving the church, and insulted the priest who remained in the temple. The priest of Santa Teresita church, Jose Conrado Rodriguez, said at least five people were detained during the crackdown, in the Americas' only one-party communist-ruled state. "They barged in spraying gas in the faces of people from those spray cans, and went about dishing out blows and shouting," Conrado Rodriguez told the press. He said about 15-20 patrol cars turned up at the church, outside which some 600 people had gathered, many of them from the protest march that had just ended. The arrests have raised alarm bells among dissident groups who fear they are just the start of a new wave of repression by Cuban authorities. According to dissident groups, over the past few weeks 29 dissidents suffered "preventive arrests" by Cuban authorities in a bid to deflate any protest planned for Human Rights Day on December 10. (AFP, LatinNews Daily, EER, 4,5/12/07)
December 3: Political prisoner José Hubaldo Izquierdo Hernández, an independent journalist of the news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro, said on 29 November that he was starting a hunger strike to protest against the lack of medical care in prison. He said he would refuse all solid food until he was moved to prison to receive appropriate treatment. Izquierdo Hernández, 42, who has been in jail since the roundups of March 2003, is serving a 16-year sentence at Guanajay prison in Havana province. (RWB Press Release, 3/12/07)
December 3: Cuban police have detained 29 anti-government activists in less than two weeks and seven remain jailed, including a man who called for the communist-run island to tolerate independent universities, a human rights leader said. Independent education activist Rolando Rodriguez was arrested after announcing that 5,000 signatures had been collected in support of autonomous universities in Cuba, said Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation. Sanchez, whose organization is not recognized but is tolerated by Cuban authorities, said the arrests come as government critics prepare to mark International Human Rights Day on December 10. He said the detentions began on November 21, when five government critics in Havana were detained by police without charges, then released. The rest were picked up in following days during subsequent roundups. (AP, 3/12/07)
December 1: The leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Payá, told the press that Cuban security forces had prevented the followers of the group from being present at the meeting of their newly formed Citizen’s Committee for Reconciliation and Dialogue in Cuba. Payá denounced that the security forces held up at least six of the twelve participants who were heading to the meeting of the committee that was organized at the home of the Cuban dissident. These followers remained in police custody during a brief period of time before being sent back to their homes. Nevertheless, once there, they were “fenced in inside their houses” by the Cuban police, to prevent them from being present at the meeting, declared Payá to the press. (ABC, 2/12/07)
