HAVANA – A dissident group calling itself the Orlando Zapata Tamayo
Committee on Thursday announced a campaign to collect signatures to ask
Cuba's National Assembly to free the island's political prisoners.
The group, created after the death of dissident prisoner Orlando Zapata
Tamayo after an 85-day hunger strike, is appealing to the solidarity of
Cubans to defend human rights on the communist-ruled island.
In addition, the group is expressing the urgency of "defending respect
for the right to life of those valiant countrymen who believe that the
hunger strike is the most efficacious resource to pressure the
authorities regarding the dramatic and systematic violation of our rights."
Manuel Cuesta Morua, one of the leaders of the initiative, told Efe that
the effort intends to "initiate the collection of signatures to deliver
them" to parliament.
The campaign is aimed at securing an amnesty for political prisoners and
the ratification of various U.N. rights conventions signed by the Cuban
government in 2008.
In addition, it asks for the reform of articles in the Penal Code such
as the so-called crime of "pre-criminal dangerousness," a charge often
used against government opponents.
It also demands that the creation of the pro-government mobs, officially
known as "Rapid Response Brigades," that harass dissidents, be declared
"unconstitutional."
The Orlando Zapata Tamayo Committee bases its initiative on Article 63
of the Cuban Constitution, which says that "any citizen has the right to
direct complaints and petitions to the authorities and to receive
attention or appropriate responses."
Dissident organizations say the Cuban government is holding some 200
political prisoners. Around a quarter of those detainees have been
designated by Amnesty International as prisoners of conscience. EFE
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