Cuban courts today started handing down jail terms of up to 25 years to dozens of dissidents detained and accused of subversion in a crackdown that has raised international concerns.
Mr Hector Palacios, a democratic reform campaigner, was jailed for 25 years, and Mr Paul Rivero, a leading dissident journalist and poet, and economist Ms Marta Beatriz Roque were jailed for 20 years, their families said.
They were among 78 dissidents arrested last month in the biggest crackdown on the opposition in Cuba in years. The trials started Thursday and ended today.
Opposition activist Mr Elizardo Sanchez, who was not among those arrested, said that the government has scrambled to use the cover of the Iraq war to weaken the international impact of the crackdown. He said 33 sentences were handed down today.
Cuban prosecutors had sought a life sentence against Mr Palacios and 11 others, including Ms Roque, the 57-year-old head of the Assembly to Promote a Civil Society. They demanded prison terms of 10 to 35 years for the others.
Mr Palacios (62) is one of the leaders of the Varela Project, whose demands for election reform is widely viewed as the boldest direct dissident challenge ever to President Fidel Castro's government, the only one-party communist regime in the Americas.
The Varela Project requested a referendum vote last year on demands for freedom of expression and association, freedom of enterprise, an amnesty for political prisoners, a new electoral law and, and elections within one year. The initiative garnered more than 11,000 signatures.
Ms Roque was accused of "collaborating with a foreign power threatening the security of the state," according to her nephew Mr Joel Roque.
AFP