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CUBA
NEWS
Yahoo!
 Cuba
Detains Wife of Jailed Journalist
HAVANA, 29 (AP) - The wife of a political
activist imprisoned in a crackdown on dissent
said she was detained Wednesday by authorities
who warned her to stop publishing a magazine
once produced by some of the jailed dissidents.
Claudia Marquez told The Associated Press
that two officials picked her up at home
and questioned her at a police station for
three hours.
The officials asked her about the magazine
De Cuba - From Cuba - a collection of original
writings by some of the island's independent
journalists.
Just two monthly editions of the magazine
were published before the March crackdown.
Magazine editor Ricardo Gonzalez and adviser
Raul Rivero were among 75 independent journalists,
activists and others arrested and sentenced
to long terms.
Marquez and several other wives of imprisoned
activists recently published a third edition,
a compilation of stories carried by international
media about the crackdown.
She said the officials told her "they
would not permit another publication."
Marquez, 26, is married to Osvaldo Alfonso,
leader of an opposition political party.
He was sentenced to 18 years on charges
of working with American officials to undermine
the socialist system of Cuban leader Fidel
Castro.
Marquez has also written occasional columns
for the San Antonio Express-News since January.
"We are greatly relieved to hear she
has been released," said the paper's
editor, Robert Rivard.
Although the prisoners' wives have been
vocal since the crackdown, this was the
first report of one being detained and questioned.
Revista
De Cuba (PDF)
Lawyers vs. Castro
Law.com. Thursday October
30, 1:58 am ET. Matthew Haggman, Miami Daily
Business Review
The Cuban-American Bar Association plans
to send financial aid to the family of imprisoned
Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet and possibly
other political prisoners jailed since a
crackdown against opposition groups on the
island.
The move is part of a larger plan hatched
by CABA following the mass arrests and convictions
of Cuban dissidents by the Fidel Castro
regime in March and April. CABA is seeking
to ratchet up pressure on the Castro government
and keep a spotlight on the fate of the
prisoners who were sentenced to terms of
six to 28 years after summary trials and
convictions.
The Miami-based lawyer group also is asking
other legal and human rights groups to publicly
condemn Castro's crackdown on political
opponents and to pressure the Cuban leader
to release the prisoners. Last month, it
filed a petition with the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights in Washington,
D.C., against Cuba on behalf of 74 of the
75 dissidents. (The other dissident, Omar
Rodriguez Saludes, had a petition filed
on his behalf in April.) The petition seeks
the release of the prisoners.
CABA has not previously sought to provide
economic support to dissidents in Cuba or
to take any other direct action against
the Castro regime. The group was founded
in 1974 to help Cuban-American lawyers advance
in the legal profession. It currently has
about 2,000 members.
Some South Florida attorneys and organizations
hailed CABA's anti-Castro efforts. Dade
County Bar Association president John H.
Hickey said his organization is not only
supportive of CABA's effort but is seeking
to independently take action condemning
the dissident crackdown. "We're certainly
in the fight with CABA," said Hickey,
a Miami solo practitioner.
"I wish more groups like them would
do this," said Joe Garcia, executive
director of the Cuban American National
Foundation.
But some Cuban-American attorneys are critical
of CABA. Lawyer Jesus Sanchelima, who left
Cuba in 1960 when he was 11, cautioned that
CABA's effort to send financial support
to a Cuban dissident could be harmful to
the recipient.
"It makes them more a target by the
[Cuban] government," said Sanchelima,
a Miami solo practitioner who is secretary
of the U.S.-Cuba Legal Forum, a group that
seeks to foster dialogue between U.S. and
Cuban lawyers. "It is good that [CABA]
files a petition. But sending money down
there is very dangerous and may compromise
people."
CABA plans to send the maximum allowed
by U.S. law to be received by each household
in Cuba -- $300 every three months and a
total of $1,200 each year. While that may
not seem like a lot by American standards,
"to put it into perspective, a medical
doctor at the University of Havana makes
U.S. $30 a month," said Ramon A. Abadin,
president-elect of CABA.
CABA selected Biscet as an aid recipient
because "he is one of the most renowned
dissidents in Cuba," said Antonio C.
Castro, a CABA board member and partner
at Boies Schiller & Flexner in Miami.
"After he was incarcerated for several
years, one of the first things he did when
he was released was denounce the deplorable
conditions in the Cuban prisons. The guy
is unbreakable."
Biscet was released in February after serving
a three-year sentence for such charges as
"insulting symbols of the fatherland"
and "public disorder." A month
after his release, Biscet was arrested as
part of the crackdown and sentenced to 25
years in prison.
CABA president Victor M. Diaz Jr., a partner
at Podhurst Orseck Josefsberg Eaton Meadow
Olin & Perwin in Miami, said the aid
money would come from attorneys who sit
on the board of directors, as well as from
members of the group. "We may undertake
the support of other cases and individuals
in the future," he said.
The Cuban Interest Section in Washington,
D.C., did not return calls for comment.
In March, while the world's attention was
focused on U.S. preparations for invading
Iraq, the Castro regime rounded up human
rights activists, journalists and academics
on the grounds that they were conspiring
with U.S. diplomats to undermine the Cuban
government.
Following closed trials, the government
in April also executed three men who were
convicted of hijacking a Havana ferry in
hopes of sailing to Florida. Four other
men involved in the hijacking were sentenced
to life in prison.
The arrests, trials and sentences by the
Cuban government were widely criticized
around the world as being done without due
process. The crackdown heightened the long-simmering
tensions between the U.S. and Cuba.
After the dissidents were jailed, CABA
convened an emergency meeting of its 15-member
board of directors in April. It developed
a four-point plan that has been carried
out in the intervening months.
In August, the group persuaded the American
Bar Association to write a letter to Fidel
Castro condemning the convictions and lengthy
sentences imposed on the dissidents as violations
of international law. In September, it filed
its petition with the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights. In addition, it mailed
letters to 200 bar and human rights organizations
across the country asking that they condemn
Castro's crackdown and file an amicus brief
with the Inter-American Commission.
So far, less than 10 of the 200 organizations
contacted have responded. Among the bar
organizations that have responded are Pennsylvania
and New York, according to Roland Sanchez-Medina
Jr., a CABA board member who co-led the
outreach effort.
"They have responded by saying we
are taking it into consideration and will
let us know about taking the next step,"
Sanchez-Medina, a partner at Sanchez-Medina
& Associates in Coral Gables. "New
York asked about the particulars of filing
an amicus with the Inter-American Commission."
The Florida Bar declined to participate.
In an Oct. 16 letter to Diaz, Bar president
Miles A. McGrane III wrote that his organization
is prohibited by law from engaging in "partisan
advocacy" because it's an official,
regulatory arm of the Florida Supreme Court
and all Florida attorneys are required to
be members. He encouraged CABA to seek support
from voluntary bar groups.
The Dade County Bar Association's Hickey
said he plans to write a strongly worded
letter to Castro on behalf of his group,
along with a column in the bar newsletter
hailing the work of Nobel Peace Prize nominee
Oswaldo Paya.
Paya, a Cuban dissident who has not been
jailed, heads the Varela Project. It seeks
a voter referendum on the Cuban government.
"I see the Varela Project as something
akin to the French resistance in World War
II," Hickey said.
Greenberg Traurig chief executive Cesar
Alvarez, who was among CABA's founders,
expressed strong support for the bar group's
new anti-Castro push. "To now see CABA
getting involved in some of these other
issues that are important to us as Cuban-Americans
-- particularly when they relate to issues
like freedom of the press and freedom of
religion which the legal profession is so
often called upon to defend -- I am delighted,"
he said.
But Miami attorney Antonio R. Zamora, who
was a founder of both CABA and the Cuban
American National Foundation, criticized
CABA's effort as ineffectual and counterproductive.
Zamora, of counsel at Hughes Hubbard &
Reed in Miami, also helped found the U.S.-Cuba
Legal Forum.
"It may be nice and symbolic for politics
in Miami, but it really does not have any
effect here," said Zamora, who was
reached at the Hotel Melia in Havana where
he is researching an article on real estate
law. "It is counterproductive for us
to try and influence events here, especially
in a confrontational manner."
Zamora, who participated in the Bay of
Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and was jailed
by the Cuban government for 20 months before
being released to the United States, said
he favors engaging the Cuban bar and authorities
to try to resolve the issues through "constructive
engagement." But the U.S. government
earlier this year denied a license to Zamora's
U.S.-Cuba Legal Forum to hold its annual
conference for American and Cuban lawyers
in Havana.
Diaz criticized what he called the silence
of Zamora and other U.S.-Cuba Legal Forum
participants in the wake of Castro's crackdown
on political opponents.
"To remain silent is not an option,"
he said. "To motivate and mobilize
public opinion against the oppression of
human rights is never counterproductive.
It is in best tradition of how lawyers have
responded to human rights violations through
history in places like South Africa, Eastern
Europe, Chile and Argentina."
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