Cuba supporters break up prison protest (AP)

[ellisonz]

Source: Associated Press

Cuba supporters break up prison protest
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer 14 minutes ago
HAVANA - Government supporters broke up a public protest Tuesday by prisoners' wives who intermittently shouted "Freedom! Freedom!" as they marched through a neighborhood in the capital to mark the crackdown that put their loved ones behind bars.

More than 40 government supporters shouted down the smaller "Ladies in White" group with cries of "Long Live Fidel!" in a reference to ailing leader Fidel Castro. There were no physical confrontations between the two groups, and it was not immediately known if there were any arrests.

"We are people who have to defend our revolution, our streets," said government supporter Esperanza Gomez, explaining the counter-demonstration.

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Since Saturday, the Ladies in White have held activities every day to mark the fourth anniversary of the crackdown launched against dissidents on March 18, 2003, just as the first U.S. military strike on Iraq was getting under way.

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Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070320/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_opposition;_ylt=Akeyaz.pDAEUp2Xf6UnpenO3IxIF

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Nothing to see here, move along, that's what the honcho wants...

[pampango]

1. Kick.

[bemildred]

2. Free speech is great, isn't it? nt

[David__77]

3. The opposition ladies look well-to-do

It doesn't necessarily mean anything, but if you look you see the pro-government people look much poorer. Interesting. It's certainly like that in Venezuela too.

[Mika]

4. They are well funded by the US interests section in Havana.

In the trials for their husbands it was revealed (with evidence) that they were on the payroll of the US government & various Miami Cuban exile groups connected with terrorist acts against Cuba(& Cubans), receiving many times the average wage. They were aiding and abetting the declared enemies of Cuba (the US gov and various exile terra groups).

[Bacchus39]

5. no room for protest in Cuba

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/10/cuba10306.htm

Despite the release in 2004 of fourteen of the seventy-five political dissidents, independent journalists, and human rights advocates prosecuted in April 2003, human rights conditions in Cuba have not improved. The Cuban government systematically denies its citizens basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, movement, and a fair trial. It restricts nearly all avenues of political dissent, and uses police warnings, surveillance, short term-detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions, and politically-motivated dismissals from employment as methods of enforcing political conformity.

Human rights monitoring is not recognized as a legitimate activity, but rather is stigmatized as a betrayal of Cuban sovereignty. No local human rights groups enjoy legal status. Instead, human rights defenders face systematic harassment, with the government placing heavy burdens on their ability to monitor human rights conditions. Nor are international human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch allowed to send fact-finding missions to Cuba

Political prisoners who denounce poor conditions of imprisonment or who otherwise fail to observe prison rules are frequently punished by long periods in punitive isolation cells, restrictions on visits, or denial of medical treatment.

There is only one official labor union in Cuba, the Worker’s Central of Cuba (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, CTC). Independent labor unions are denied formal status and their members are harassed.

[Bacchus39]

6. arrested for disobedience???

Gonzalez Leiva was reportedly sentenced to four years of house arrest on charges of disrespect for authority, public disorder, disobedience and resisting arrest. Several of the other defendants, including Virgilio Mantilla Arango, reportedly received prison sentences of up to seven years. The prosecution was based on a political protest that they held at a provincial hospital in March 2002.

disobedience????????

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04/27/cuba8500.htm


The denial of basic civil and political rights is written into Cuban law. A number of criminal law provisions grant the state extraordinary power to prosecute people who attempt to exercise basic rights to free expression, opinion, association, and assembly. The country’s courts also deny defendants internationally-recognized due process guarantees, including the right to a public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

7. Don't you know that HRW is a FUNDIE organization

because the criticize Great Leader Castro and his protege Dear Leader Chavez?

[Bacchus39]

8. forgive me

en el nombre del Comandante
el hijo Chavez
y el espiritu santo comunismo

amen.