Cuban Dissidents' Wives Call for Release
By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer

HAVANA - The wives of imprisoned activists called for their husbands' release Thursday, one year after communist Cuba rounded them up in a group of 75 people during a crushing crackdown on dissent.

Marlene Gonzalez, center, wife of Jose Luis Gonzalez, talks with reporters during a commemoration called for their husbands' release one year after their detention at Gisela Delgado's home, right, Thursday, March 18, 2004 in Havana, Cuba. Delgado is the wife of jailed dissident Hector Palacios. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera)

"We make another call for the release of the 75 innocent prisoners, just as we have made various calls in the past," said Gisela Delgado, wife of jailed opposition party leader Hector Palacios.

"I'm not optimistic that they will be released because the government has been increasingly intransigent," said Delgado, who wore a white T-shirt printed with a color photograph of her husband. "But we will keep on fighting."

Palacios, who recently underwent a gall bladder operation, is one of more than a dozen prisoners among the 75 who are currently hospitalized in custody for serious ailments.
Sitting under a red, white and blue Cuban flag tacked to the wall of her small living room, Delgado and several other prisoners' wives were spending the day in a protest fast.
It was among at least three such gatherings around Havana Thursday as inmates' families and supporters marked the anniversary of the roundup of independent reporters, opposition party members and democracy activists launched March 18, 2003.

Human rights groups around the world also weighed in this week, calling for the immediate release of the 74 men and one woman accused by Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government of working with U.S. officials to undermine the socialist system.
Cuba has defended the crackdown as necessary to protect the island from attempts by foreign powers to topple its communist leadership.
It also justified as necessary the unrelated firing-squad executions during that same period of three men who tried to hijack a passenger ferry to the United States. The unsuccessful hijack attempt came amid a wave of attempted hijackings of boats and planes that raised fears of a migration crisis.
Amnesty International was among the international rights groups that remembered the 75 crackdown prisoners this week, and called for their immediate release.

"After a detailed review of the legal cases against them, it is clear that they are prisoners of conscience — detained for the peaceful expression of their beliefs," said a statement from the London-based group.

The mothers and wives of jailed Cuban dissidents stand together while showing pictures of their loved ones during a meeting in Havana, March 18, 2004. The women met to mark the first anniversary of the arrests of their husbands and sons and to call for their release. Dissident leaders said they were slowly recovering from the wave of arrests that began on March 18, 2003 and summary trials of 75 dissidents who got prison terms of up to 28 years. REUTERS/Rafael Perez

The dissidents deny Cuba's charges they were mercenaries for the American government, and say their only crime was speaking their mind. The 75 were sentenced last April to prison terms of six to 28 years.
Palacios, president of Cuba's outlawed Democratic Solidarity Party, was sentenced to 25 years in what some dissidents here call the "Cuban Spring" — a reference to the short-lived "Prague Spring" reform effort crushed by former Czechoslovakia's communist government in 1968.
As many others picked up in Cuba's roundup, Palacios was an organizer for the Varela Project, a signature-gathering effort that seeks a voter's referendum on laws guaranteeing civil rights such as freedom of speech, assembly and private business ownership.
The initiative, later shelved by Cuba's National Assembly as unconstitutional, also sought electoral reforms and an amnesty for political prisoners.

The anniversary of the Cuban crackdown was remembered Thursday in Prague, Czech Republic, where about 200 protesters marched outside the Cuban Embassy chanting: "Cuba si! Castro no!"

In Washington this week, four Cuban-American members of the U.S. Congress introduced a resolution calling for the condemnation of the Castro government.
U.S. Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Bob Menendez also expressed support for jailed dissidents.

"The Cuban people should know that we stand shoulder to shoulder with them during these dark days and we will not falter till the oppressive Castro regime is gone for ever," Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.

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