Cuban rights activist's circumstance uncertain
Posted on Tue, Feb. 12, 2008
Miami Herald Staff Report
A human rights group report that a Cuban university student was arrested
over the weekend after being shown on video being critical of the
government could not be confirmed Monday, despite a flurry of
international attention on the case.
The BBC posted a video last week of students at the Computer Science
University near Havana asking National Assembly President Ricardo
Alarcón tough questions about restrictions on travel and the use of dual
currencies in Cuba.
Human rights activists in Cuba on Monday said one of the students,
Eliécer Avila, was taken from his home in rural Las Tunas province by
state security agents on Saturday. The Council of Human Rights
Rapporteurs, an umbrella organization for Cuban human rights groups,
released the news after one of its activists, Esilia Carreoso, was
contacted by Avila's mother.
Efforts by The Miami Herald to reach Carreoso or the student's mother,
Elsa Sicilia, were unsuccessful Monday.
According to the council, Avila's mother told Carreoso her son was
warned Friday not to leave his home. She told the group that among those
who detained him on Saturday was one man who identified himself as the
son of Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and claimed that Avila would
soon appear on Mesa Redonda, a Cuban TV talk show.
There was no independent confirmation of the Council's report, and the
student did not appear on Monday's night's program.
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