Cuban mob attacks human rights protesters

Cuban mob attacks human rights protesters
Monday, December 11, 2006
by Marc Frank

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters): More than 200 Cuban government supporters
attacked 15 human rights activists on International Human Rights Day on
Sunday, manhandling the demonstrators as they drove them from a Havana park.

"Fidel, Fidel" and "Raul, Raul," the mob shouted as it swarmed the
dissidents before their protest could begin, breaking up the group and
shoving and dragging the activists for a few blocks. One protester's
shirt was ripped off and he was threatened with a beating.

"One of us suffered a fractured arm and almost everyone was hit," march
organizer Dr. Darcy Ferrer, said in a telephone interview. "We do not
know if anyone was detained as we still haven't heard from six or seven
people," he said.

The attack took place in view of foreign journalists, who were also the
target of angry shouts by the crowd, and appeared to signal that acting
president Raul Castro has no intention of softening his ailing brother
Fidel's no-tolerance policy toward political opposition to the Communist
state.

Cuba freed dissident Hector Palacios for health reasons on Wednesday,
sparking speculation Raul might ease policy toward the 300 political
prisoners local human rights groups say are in Cuban jails.

Palacios was arrested in 2003 in a crackdown on dissent that landed 75
pro-democracy activists in prison for conspiring against Cuba with its
ideological enemy, the United States.

Palacios was the 16th member of the group to be freed on health grounds
and the first since Fidel Castro temporarily handed over power to Raul
after emergency surgery in July.

Since the 2003 arrests, the government has staged dozens of mob actions
to intimidate dissidents but claims they are spontaneous and there is no
physical violence.

The rowdy crowd on Sunday was closely watched by state security agents,
who on more than one occasion had to intervene. At one point the agents
shoved a woman into a taxi as the crowd pounded the vehicle with their
fists.

The protest was called by the National Patriotic Front, one of dozens of
small opposition groups in Cuba the government charges are organised and
financed by the United States.

Asked why the group had acted so aggressively, a furious Mercedes
Morejon, a middle-aged woman, shouted she would do worse if she could.
"They are our enemies, they are paid by imperialism, and they have no
rights and got what they deserved."

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