Seven Cuban dissidents freed

HAVANA - The Cuban government has released seven dissidents from prison, including a 42-year-old man who had been behind bars for 17 years, dissident sources said on Tuesday.

Six dissidents were released Tuesday after spending two years in prison for “public disorder,” ”posing a danger” and “insolence,” the sources said.

Their release came two days after another prominent dissident, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, 42, was freed after spending 17 years and 37 days in prison on charges of “verbal enemy propaganda,” ”attempted sabotage” and failing to respect Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Perez, known as Antunez, was arrested for speaking out against Castro, who leads the Americas’ only one-party communist regime, on March 15, 1990.

Dissidents did not see the prisoners’ release as a goodwill gesture from the government, saying recent summary and secretive trials show that the government repression persists.

“We don’t see anything special in this,” Elizardo Sanchez, who leads the Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, told AFP.

“We are happy for (Perez’s) release, but he is coming into the streets of a country under a government that doesn’t respect any civil, political and economic rights,” Sanchez said.

“He has come out only to be exposed to an atmosphere of intolerance and political persecution,” he said.

While Cuba insists it hold no political prisoners, dissidents say almost 300 are behind bars.

Sanchez also announced the releases of Manuel Perez Soria, 55; Lazaro Alonso Roman, 32; and Emilio Leyva, 42.

Another dissident group, the outlawed National Coordinator for Past and Current Political Prisoners, said three other dissidents were released: Duylian Ramirez, Elio Chavez and Jose Diaz Silva. There ages were not immediately given.

One of the newly freed dissidents reiterated his opposition to Castro’s regime.

“I am an opponent of this government and my life is fully dedicated to this, because I am on the right side,” Perez Soria told AFP. “This country is screaming for economic, political and social changes.”

Original Link: Khaleej Times Online