Published on March 01, 2007
HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters): Five dissidents arrested in 2005 in
demonstrations against Cuba's Communist government were sentenced on
Tuesday to jail terms of up to two years, human rights activist Elizardo
Sanchez said.
Rene Montes de Oca and Roberto de Jesus Guerra were picked up by police
after a "symbolic" protest on the fringes on Havana's Revolution Square
on July 13, 2005, he said.
Three other dissidents arrested the same day in another peaceful
demonstration near the port of Havana were also convicted of public
disorder.
All got two-year prison terms, except Guerra, who was sentenced to one
year and 10 months. They should be freed within months because they
receive credit for time served, Sanchez said.
"They should not have spent a day in jail because they committed no
crime," said Sanchez, who heads the illegal but tolerated Cuban
Commission for Human Rights.
"We think the government is moving to close pending cases," he said.
Since Cuban leader Fidel Castro underwent emergency surgery and handed
over power to his brother Raul in late July, Cuba has freed four jailed
dissidents, including sociologist Hector Palacios and Rene Gomez
Manzano, a lawyer who had been held for 18 months without trial.
Palacios was the 16th member of a group of 75 dissidents jailed in a
March 2003 crackdown to be released on medical grounds. The others are
serving sentences of up to 28 years.
Fifty selective releases during 2006 reduced the number of Cubans in
prison for political reasons to 283, Sanchez said.
Havana says Cuba's small and fractious dissident movement is made up of
"mercenaries" on the payroll of its longtime ideological enemy, the US
government.
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