Cuba detains more dissidents after hunger strike death

Feb 24, 2010, 18:48 GMT

   Havana - Dozens of dissidents have been arrested or detained in their homes after the death of an imprisoned dissident provoked a world outcry against Cuba, according to a dissident organization Wednesday.

The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), an umbrella organization of dissidents, said that some 30 dissidents were affected by the measures which appeared aimed at preventing them from attending the funeral for Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the dissident who died Tuesday after an 83-day hunger strike.

'A wave of political repression has been unleashed,' Elizardo Sanchez, spokesman for CCDHRN, told the German Press Agency dpa.

At the time of Zapata's death, he had been serving a 36- year jail sentence for wrongdoings such as 'disrespect,' 'public disorder,' 'resistance' and 'disobedience.'

Sanchez spoke of a 'wave of arbitrary arrests and house detentions on the part of the state's security forces across the country, with a special emphasis on eastern provinces.'

Arrests took place in Holguin, where Zapata Tamayo lived and where he was set to be buried Wednesday, and also in Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Las Tunas and Camaguey, Sanchez said.

The dissident was to be buried in Banes, about 800 kilometres east of Havana, but Sanchez noted that the body had not arrived by Wednesday morning. Sanchez said other remembrance ceremonies were to be held across the country. Photographs of the dissident were being distributed for the ceremonies.

According to the CCDHRN, Zapata Tamayo is the first dissident to die in Cuban prisons since 1972.

Human rights organizations denounced that there are around 200 political prisoners in the communist island. However, the Cuban government denies that there are any political prisoners in Cuba, and says all prisoners have been arrested and condemned based on the law.