By Isabel Sanchez (AFP)
HAVANA — Dozens of human rights activists marched and shouted "Freedom"
here to press the Cuban government to meet its own deadline for freeing
a large group of political prisoners.
At the center of the showdown are 13 prisoners who have rejected exile,
putting pressure on the government to release them in Cuba in order to
meet a commitment it made to the Roman Catholic Church.
"We asked for the government's heart to be softened and for them to keep
their promise because if they do not, they would be deceiving the Roman
Catholic Church and international community," said Laura Pollan, who
leads a group of prisoners' wives and mothers called the Ladies in White.
The Catholic Church also urged the government to release the prisoners
and ease the suffering of their families.
"We hope that decisions are taken and that it eases the suffering and
anxiety being created among the wives and other relatives of the
prisoners," said Jose Felix Perez, the secretary of the Cuban Conference
of Bishops.
President Raul Castro agreed on July 7 to release 52 prisoners over a
four month period ending Sunday.
Dissident sources say there are around 100 political prisoners still
jailed in Cuba, in addition to the 52.
Most of the 52 have left the country for Spain with their families, but
13 have opted "not to emigrate for now," Bertha Soler, the other top
leader of the Ladies in White, told AFP. Her husband Angel Moya refuses
to be forced into exile.
As the Ladies in White walked out of Saint Rita church in Havana's
upscale Miramar district, where they march every Sunday for their loved
ones' release, Pollan charged the government was "used to deceiving"
prisoners and their families.
But she said she was hoping for more, as Havana's public commitment on
this occasion has been greater than usual.
About 30 of the group marched longer than they usually do, waved pink
gladioluses and chanted "Freedom," also making an "L" sign with their
fingers in reference to "Libertad," the Spanish word for freedom.
"The church has told us to be hopeful, that they believe, as has the
embassy of Spain, that they will be freed, but they (the prisoners) have
heard nothing. This government is very closed-mouthed," said Pollan, the
wife of political prisoner Hector Maseda.
"We have got to keep hoping. I trust the president's word," said Oscar
Espinosa, one of 75 dissidents rounded up in a major 2004 crackdown who
later was freed for health reasons.
National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon said in Geneva on July 20 that
the Americas' only one-party Communist government wants to free all of
those on international dissident lists who have not been imprisoned for
violent crimes.
Dissident Guillermo Farinas, who won this year's Sakharov rights prize
after going on a hunger strike demanding the release of political
prisoners, last week said he thought the government would meet the deadline.
"If they don't, it would make the church look bad," said Oscar Espinosa,
a freed former dissident. "But the government is pressuring them until
the end to try to get them to leave the country, because they are a
stone in its shoe. This is just unfair."
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