Cuban authorities seize dissidents at church
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| Published on Thursday, December 6, 2007 |
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HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Cuban security forces detained up to 15 dissidents after storming into a church's parish hall to stop an anti-government protest, the church's priest and a dissident group said Wednesday, accusing authorities of repression.
The priest of Santa Teresita church in Santiago de Cuba, Jose Conrad, said at least five people were detained during the crackdown on Tuesday, while a leading dissident group said 15 were rounded up by police.
"They barged in spraying gas in the faces of people from those spray cans, and went about dishing out blows and shouting," Conrad told AFP by telephone.
He said some 15-20 patrol cars turned up at the church, outside which some 600 people had gathered, many of them from a protest march that had just ended.
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| Elizardo Sanchez, president of the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission. AFP PHOTO |
Some 25 dissidents dressed in black had walked inside the church to protest the arrest of another government opponent, said Elizardo Sanchez, president of the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission.
"The repressors, headed by a lieutenant colonel and other state security officers, desecrated the church of Santa Teresita after kicking one of its doors open and savagely assaulting the peaceful dissidents," he said in a statement.
Sanchez, whose organization is outlawed but largely tolerated by the communist regime, said the crackdown was an "extremely serious act of political repression with practically no precedent."
The commission said it "hopes the government will conduct a serious investigation and stop encouraging or allowing premeditated and unnecessary acts of police brutality against citizens trying to exercise their right to demonstrate."
He said the police action was part of "a policy of preventive repression ahead of December 10, Human Rights Day, when several opposition members have scheduled events."
A spokesman for Cuba's Catholic Bishops Conference said the police action was "unusual" and "very regrettable," adding that he hoped it proves to be "a very isolated incident."
Conrad told AFP by telephone that at least five dissidents were detained in the parish hall, which is part of the church.
As the dissidents were rounded up, Conrad said he told the police: "I want you to explain to me what is going on here, because I don't understand anything. How is this act of violence possible?"
Sanchez's group says there are about 250 political prisoners in Cuba.
The regime, however insists there are no political prisoners, only mercenaries financed by the United States and people who tried to disturb order or commit acts of terrorism. | | | | Reads : 228 | | | |
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