(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN welcomes the release on 5 May 2002 of Vladimiro Roca Antúnez. The dissident writer was released 70 days before the completion of his five-year sentence. An honorary member of English PEN, Roca Antúnez, aged 59, was the best-known political prisoner in Cuba. He was arrested on 16 July […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN welcomes the release on 5 May 2002 of Vladimiro Roca Antúnez. The dissident writer was released 70 days before the completion of his five-year sentence.
An honorary member of English PEN, Roca Antúnez, aged 59, was the best-known political prisoner in Cuba. He was arrested on 16 July 1997, a month after the publication of a pamphlet entitled “La Patria es de Todos” (“The Homeland Belongs to Everyone”). In it, Roca Antúnez and his co-authors – Félix Bonne Carcasses, René Gomez Manzano, and Marta Roque Cabello – urged the Cuban government to hold democratic elections, liberalise the economy and improve human rights. The booklet had been written to respond to an official Cuban Communist Party discussion paper.
All four were found guilty in March 1999 of “sedition and other acts against state security”. Roca Antúnez was given the longest sentence, presumably because he was the most prominent of the four, being the son of Blas Roca, one of the founders of communism in Cuba. Roca Antúnez is the last of the four to be freed.
The reasoning behind the early release is not yet clear. The decision comes just before a high-profile visit to the island by former United States president Jimmy Carter. However, the writer himself has stated that he had been informed two years ago that he might be released early for good behaviour.
In light of the release of Roca Antúnez, International PEN is calling upon the Cuban government to free independent journalist Bernardo Arevalo Padron, the last long-term prisoner in Cuba known to PEN to be serving a sentence on account of his writings. Arevalo Padron has so far served all but six months of a six-year sentence for “enemy propaganda” (see IFEX alerts of 4 July, 4 May, 12 April, 26 and 12 March and 20 February 2001, 25 July and 11 April 2000, 10 December, 22 October, 17 June and 29 January 1999 and 21 September 1998).
Recommended Action
Send appeals to the president:
– welcoming the release of Roca Antúnez
– urging him to release Arevalo Padron immediately
Appeals To
His Excellency Fidel Castro Ruíz
President of Cuba
C/o Cuban Mission to the United Nations
New York, NY
USA
Fax: +1 212 779 1697Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
