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Saturday, August 11, 2007

Cuba frees long-serving dissident

Cuba frees long-serving dissident
By Michael Voss
BBC News, Havana

A well-known Cuban dissident has been freed from jail after serving
nearly 15 years for revealing state security secrets, a human rights
group has said.

Francisco Chaviano, a former teacher, was sentenced in 1995 and was
released on parole on Friday.

The independent Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation said that he was Cuba's longest-serving political prisoner.

The Cuban government has not commented on Mr Chaviano's release.

Mr Chaviano had been one of Cuba's leading dissidents and human rights
activists in the early 1990s.

In the past Amnesty International has described his military trial as
falling short of international standards.

Prison conditions

The number of political prisoners in Cuba has fallen by about 20% since
Raul Castro, brother of President Fidel Castro, was named as acting
president just over a year ago, according to the Human Rights commission.

But its spokesman, Elizardo Sanchez, said that there were still more
than 200 such prisoners living in what he described as sub-human and
degrading conditions.

The Cuban authorities denied that they were political prisoners,
describing them as "counter-revolutionary mercenaries" on the payroll of
the United States.

Also on Friday, another former political prisoner, Martha Beatriz Roque,
held a news conference to denounce prison conditions.

At the residence of the top US diplomat in Havana, she was joined by
relatives of a number of dissidents currently in jail.

The families complained of a lack of medical care, overcrowding and
intimidation and said common criminals were treated better than
political prisoners.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6941582.stm

Published: 2007/08/11 04:42:23 GMT

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