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Cuban police clamp down on rare public demonstration

HAVANA - Cuban police briefly detained seven protesters who gathered peacefully outside Cuba's Justice Ministry, a government critic said Friday. About two dozen other people were prevented from joining the demonstration, rights groups said.

Martha Beatriz Roque and six others gathered at the ministry Thursday to present a letter demanding freedom for political prisoners they said had been beaten and tortured, and denied food and clean cells.

Though small, the demonstration was unusual in a country where organized public protests are rare and often lead to clashes with supporters of Cuba's communist system.

Roque said that after the group waited more than an hour on a curb, a ministry official came out and read a statement promising that concerns raised in the letter would be addressed.

When the protesters stayed put, government supporters began shouting insults at them. Police loaded the demonstrators on a bus and drove them home.

"They threw me on board (the bus) like a sack of potatoes," Roque said, showing faint scratch marks on her arms.

Roque said some others who had planned to attend the demonstration had been detained or confined to their homes, but she did not know how many.

The Paris-based media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders reported there were "around 30 people arrested," including four independent Cuban journalists.

Marcelo Lopez of the independent Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said that group believes 35 to 40 dissidents were detained Thursday, but that all were released by the following morning.

Cuba's government has not commented on the reports.

Roque said scores of dissidents had planned to converge on Havana for Thursday's demonstration, but that police and security agents camped outside the homes of known government critics to ensure they couldn't leave, and also watched bus terminals.

Since the 81-year-old Fidel Castro ceded leadership to his younger brother Raul in July 2006, the number of political prisoners has dropped by more than 20 percent, but still includes more than 200 inmates, according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which is not recognized by the government but is allowed to operate.

Its list includes 13 people who have been released on medical parole, including Roque, who could be returned to prison at any time for parole violations.

Roque said Friday that harassment of dissidents has not stopped. "Things have gotten worse," she said.

Cuban officials dismiss Roque and other dissidents as "mercenaries" who receive funding and support from the U.S. government. But Roque said she is waiting for "Cubans to wake up."

"Change has to come from inside the country, not outside," she said. "But the level of fear is tremendous."

[Last modified September 29, 2007, 01:18:45]