Cuba police detain 2nd dissident who talked to US Senate

Posted on Wednesday, 06.13.12

Cuba police detain 2nd dissident who talked to US Senate
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuban police have put under house detention a second dissident who
testified before the U.S. Senate last week, and arrested yet again the
man who shouted "Down with communism" just before a mass by Pope
Benedict XVI.

Havana human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz said the
arrests of more than 10 dissidents and police threats of more signaled a
crackdown to block opposition plans for events to honor political
prisoners on Fathers' Day Sunday.

"We have confirmations of the arrests of several Ladies in White and
other government opponents in the provinces of Villa Clara and Santiago
de Cuba," Sánchez told El Nuevo Herald by phone from Havana.

Dissident José Daniel Ferrer reported Tuesday that police were blocking
the door to his house in Palmarito de Cauto in Santiago, threatening to
arrest him if he leaves and telling him that he's under investigation
for a firebombing in a nearby town.

Residents of Palma Soriano have told dissidents that a Molotov cocktail
exploded Sunday night in an empty field near a school, and another was
found intact. State Security agents told the residents the blast could
be the work of dissidents.

Ferrer said he is a peaceful government critic and had nothing to do
with the firebomb. One of the 75 dissidents arrested in 2003, he was
sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of disseminating "enemy
propapaganda." He was freed last year as part of Cuban ruler Raúl
Castro's promise to free all political prisoners.

Ferrer and Jorge Luis García Perez, known as Antúnez, harshly criticized
the Cuban government strongly Thursday when they testified before a
subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

Antúnez was arrested Saturday, beaten and pepper sprayed in a police
lockup in his hometown of Placetas in Villa Clara, according to his
wife, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera. He was removed from the lockup that
evening and has not been heard from since.

Police told her that Antúnez is being held in the provincial capital,
Santa Clara, but when she and 12 other dissidents went to that police
station Tuesday, they were arrested for several hours and then forced to
go home without seeing him, the wife added.

If Antúnez was indeed there, it was odd that he did not join them in
protesting when the 13 dissidents broke into chants of "down with the
dictatorship," Perez Aguilera told human rights activists in Miami.

The cell phones for Pérez Aguilera and several other dissidents in Villa
Clara and Santiago appeared to have been blocked by authorities Tuesday
so that they could not talk with supporters or journalists.

But Sen. John Kerry, D-Ma., chairman of the senate Foreign Relations
committee, Tuesday joined the chorus of Cuban-American congress members
who have condemned Antúnez arrest.

"I want to be crystal clear that I strongly condemn any efforts to
intimidate Mr. Perez or any other Cuban citizen into silence," said
Kerry, considered a lead candidate to succeed Secretary of State Hilary
Clinton if President Barack Obama wins reelection'

Andres Carrión, who was punched and dragged away after shouting
anti-government slogans before Benedict's mass in the city of Santiago
de Cuba in March, was arrested Tuesday during a protest in a park to
demand the return of personal property.

The freelance photographer was returning from Havana when police stopped
him at a highway checkpoint outside the city and seized a new photo
printer and other photo supplies, Sánchez said.

Carrión has been arrested several times since March, usually for brief
periods. But police have warned him that they will put him on trial for
"disobedience" if he continues criticizing the government and speaking
with journalists.

Havana dissident Darsi Ferrer meanwhile announced that he will soon
leave Cuba on a U.S. political asylum visa to join his wife Yusnaimy and
young son Dariel in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

A physician, Ferrer has been particularly active in denouncing Cuba's
run-down health system, secretly filming videos of hospital rooms with
broken doors and windows, bare electrical wires, bloody floors and
bathrooms soiled with feces.

Sanchez said Ferrer wanted his wife to leave for the United States
because she suffers from unspecified health issues. But authorities
would not let her leave unless he agreed to leave also, he added.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/13/2847332/cuba-police-detain-2nd-dissident.html