Cuban police remove dissidents from Havana church
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press
HAVANA -- Cuban police evicted 13 dissidents from a church they had been
occupying for two days demanding that Pope Benedict XVI air a list of
grievances during his upcoming trip to the island, a Roman Catholic
Church spokesman said.
The protesters were removed from the Church of Charity in densely packed
Central Havana late Thursday at the request of the city's cardinal,
church spokesman Orlando Marquez said in a statement.
"Cardinal Jaime Ortega addressed the competent authorities to invite the
occupiers to abandon the sanctuary," the statement said.
The dissidents were removed without resistance, it added.
"The agents who carried out the operation had assured the Church they
would be unarmed, that they would initially take the 13 persons to a
police station and then to their homes. It also said they would be
processed," Marquez said.
The dissidents initially occupied the church on Tuesday to demand an
audience with Benedict when he visits Cuba this month. They later
changed their demand and said they wanted the pontiff to mediate a list
of their grievances with the Cuban government.
The occupation clearly angered Catholic officials, who have been
friendly to and mediated for other dissidents in the past.
Fred Calderon, a spokesman for the dissidents, said his group wanted
Benedict to speak with authorities about freeing people imprisoned for
political crimes, ending intimidation of dissidents, increasing access
to information, expanding private property rights, doing away with
travel restrictions and establishing a transitional government to end a
half-century of Communist rule under Fidel and Raul Castro.
"We want him to intercede on our behalf ... and be a mediator for our
demands," Calderon told The Associated Press.
The church had forcefully rejected of the protest, which spokesman
Orlando Marquez termed "illegitimate" and "disrespectful." Even
prominent Cuban dissidents questioned whether disrupting a house of
worship was an appropriate tactic.
Cuba's government has had little to say, but generally considers
dissidents to be mercenaries trying to undermine its authority. State
media, which rarely mention the opposition, published the Catholic
Church's condemnation of the occupation in Thursday's papers.
"Nobody has the right to turn temples into political trenches," read the
communique from Marquez, which was issued the previous evening.
None of the eight men and five women who were inside the church has a
noted history of activism, and they apparently are not members of a
single group, though Calderon said he belonged to an organization called
the Republican Party, one of the many small, often-ephemeral outfits
that make up the fractured opposition.
Another dissident in the church said the protesters averagd about 40
years old and none are currently employed. They included homemakers,
restaurant workers, university graduates and retirees, said Vladimir
Calderon, who is not related to Fred Calderon.
More prominent dissenters such as the Ladies in White and blogger Yoani
Sanchez generally sought to distance themselves, while expressing
sympathy for the group's demands.
"These are new people," said Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Havana-based
Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation and a
de-facto spokesman for dissidents. "We are being cautious."
Sanchez predicted that dissidents' ties to the Catholic Church would not
suffer since the established opposition has not backed the occupation.
However Yoani Sanchez, no relation, said she thought the Church
overreacted in its statement.
"Although I have many criticisms of the act of occupying a church, I
have a worse opinion of the archdiocese's statement published in
(Communist Party newspaper) Granma," Sanchez tweeted.
Many of the more-established dissidents have significant ties to the
Catholic Church, which in 2010 helped broker the release of the last of
75 opposition activists and social commentators imprisoned in a 2003
crackdown. The last was freed in spring 2011.
Cuban authorities dispute dissident claims the government holds
political prisoners.
Most of the inmates still behind bars for political crimes were
convicted of violent offenses such as hijacking and armed assault, which
keeps them from being recognized as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty
International.
Benedict's Cuba trip is scheduled for March 26-28.
Follow Andrea Rodriguez on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/15/2695669/cuba-dissidents-vow-to-stay-in.html
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