Dissident leader Marta Beatriz Roque arrested in new Cuban crackdown


HAVANA (AFP) - Cuban dissident leader Marta Beatriz Roque and more than a dozen other activists were arrested in a new crackdown on the Cuban opposition by President Fidel Castro's regime, dissidents and relatives said.

Roque, a 59-year-old economist, is president of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society, which had organized a protest in front of the French Embassy here Friday to demand the release of political prisoners from Cuban jails.

Many of those detained were leading figures in the group.

"She was detained by state security agents shortly after leaving her home. About 20 dissidents have been arrested," said Elizardo Sanchez, president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

"These arrests are absolutely arbitrary. It's a flagrant violation of human rights," said Sanchez, affirming a link between the arrests and the protest, which went forward Friday but was attended by only about 15 people.

Also arrested Friday were Rene Gomez Manzano, vice president of the assembly, engineer Felix Bonne, and Niurka Maria Pena, Roque's secretary.

"They arrived at the house, knocked and presented themselves as security agents... they told him he had to come with them," Gomez's brother, Jorge Gomez, told AFP.

Roque was arrested along with her driver at about 8:30 am, as she was leaving home to go to the protest, according to Sanchez. "It's not known yet where she's being held," he said.

Roque was the only woman arrested in 2003 in a crackdown that landed 75 dissidents in Cuban prisons. She founded the assembly, which groups some 360 Cuban opposition organizations, shortly before.

The group held its first national assembly in May, bringing 160 delegates from all over Cuba for a two-day meeting near Havana that unfolded without interference from Fidel Castro's regime.

James Cason, the top official at the US Interests Section in Havana, has twice participated in assembly activities, in a sign of the close link between Roque and Washington.

Roque was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2003 but released for health reasons exactly one year ago, on July 22, 2004, suffering from diabetes, hypertension and partial paralysis of the face. She had already spent three years in jail between 1997 and 2000.

"We have indications that there were other arrests, but we are in the process of trying to verify the information. In most cases, authorities prevented dissidents from leaving their homes," Marco Lopez of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said earlier.

Thursday, Roque said by telephone that the decision to demonstrate in front of the French Embassy was to show dissidents' displeasure with the normalization of relations between Paris and Havana, which took place a week ago today.

"We will demand the liberation of the detainees and we will show to the European Union what happens with dialogue (with the Cuban government)," said Roque.

The EU sanctioned Cuba after Castro's regime cracked down on dissidents in 2003, but in January the EU temporarily suspended the sanctions and in June it ratified re-establishment of political dialogue with Havana.

It also ordered a suspension of its practice of inviting Cuban dissidents to national celebrations, saying that instead a parallel dialogue should be established with the opposition.

France went on step further last week by inviting Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque to the French embassy's July 14 Bastille Day celebration.

About 30 people were arrested in Havana on July 13 during a demonstration commemorating the drowning death in 1994 of 41 people trying to flee Cuba by boat. Six of the 30 are still behind bars, dissident sources said.