United States 'deeply concerned' by Cuba dissident arrests

31 December 2014 Last updated at 23:09 GMT

United States 'deeply concerned' by Cuba dissident arrests

The United States has said it is deeply concerned about reports that
several high-profile Cuban dissidents were detained on Tuesday.

Activists say police made the arrests hours ahead of a planned protest
in Havana's Revolution Square.

Organisers said the protest was aimed at testing the tolerance of Cuba's
communist government.

On 17 December, the US and Cuba announced they would normalise relations.

Despite the historic announcement, Washington said earlier today that it
would "continue to press the Cuban government to uphold its
international obligations".

"We strongly condemn the Cuban government's continued harassment and
repeated use of arbitrary detention, at times with violence, to silence
critics," read the statement.

Open microphone protest
The crackdown was flagged up by Cuba's best-known dissident blogger,
Yoani Sanchez, on Tuesday.

She posted on Twitter that her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, and another
dissident, Eliecer Avila, had been detained.

Ms Sanchez, founder of opposition website Catorce y Medio, said she was
briefly put under house arrest.

Mr Escobar, a senior editor at the website, was released after several
hours in police custody.

They had been supporting an "open microphone" protest organised by
performance artist Tania Bruguera.

Ms Bruguera was also detained on Tuesday, hours before the unauthorised
event at Havana's Revolution Square.

She was briefly released earlier today, but rearrested after trying to
hold a press conference in Havana's seaside avenue, the Malecon,
according to the AFP news agency.

'Rigid outdated policy'
Opposition activist Elizardo Sanchez told AFP that 51 dissidents had
been detained and that 15 remained in jail.

The arrests have not been confirmed by the Cuban authorities or reported
by state media.

US-Cuban ties have been frozen since the early 1960s.

On 17 December President Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro,
made simultaneous announcements stating that they planned to normalise
relations.

President Obama said the "rigid and outdated policy" of isolating Cuba
since then had clearly failed and that it was time for a new approach.

Mr Castro, meanwhile, urged the US to ends its trade embargo, which has
been in place since the Cuba turned to communism more than 50 years ago.

But the proposals to end the embargo still need to be approved by the US
Congress, where they face strong opposition.

Source: BBC News - United States 'deeply concerned' by Cuba dissident
arrests - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30647168