Repression Intensifies against Young Opposition Activists from Eastern Cuba

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Repression Intensifies against Young Opposition Activists from Eastern Cuba
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina and Fellow Activist Arrested in Baracoa

Young Cuban activist Yorledis Duvalón-Guibert Ortiz, editor of the independent newsletter "Renacer" (Rebirth), published in Santiago de Cuba.

UPDATE: Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina was released this afternoon with an official warning. The whereabouts of Yorledis Duvallon-Guibert Ortiz are currently unknown.

Guantánamo. September 17, 2008. Cuban Democratic Directorate. Cuban student leader Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina was arbitrarily detained on the streets of Baracoa along with fellow young opposition activist Yorledis Duvallon-Guibert Ortiz at midday on Tuesday, September 16. Rodríguez Lobaina directs the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy’s Center for Alternative Studies, and Duvallon-Guibert Ortiz edits the Movement’s independent newsletter Renacer (Rebirth), published in Santiago de Cuba.

According to independent journalist Luis Felipe Rojas Rosabal, Rodríguez Lobaina and Duvallon-Guibert were taken to the police station on Calle Martí, Final in Baracoa and face charges of “public disorder.” Only two days previously, Rodríguez Lobaina testified during a parallel forum held at the headquarters of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. During his testimony, Rodríguez Lobaina urged international human rights organizations and foreign countries to pressure the Cuban regime to allow massive humanitarian aid to reach the population directly. Baracoa, the city where the activists were detained, is one of the areas hardest-hit by Hurricane Ike.

“Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina was calling me from Baracoa and at the precise moment when we were speaking, a patrol car carrying two police officers arrived and detained him along with another activist from the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy named Yorledis Duvallón-Guibert. That happened around 12:30. We are very worried and we hold State Security in Baracoa responsible because they had threatened they would detain them because they could not be taking pictures around Baracoa. Furthermore, [they were threatened because of] the information they were reporting on radio stations concerning the tragedy the people of Baracoa are living through, and that the Cuban government is hiding,” stated Rojas Rosabal to the Cuban Democratic Directorate on Tuesday afternoon.

The arrest happened as two other Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy activists faced an appeal hearing after a previous arrest and sentencing. These young activists, Yordis García Fournier and Isael Poveda Silva, were sentenced to one year in prison on the spurious charge of “resistance,” a sentence upheld upon appeal. At the hearing, relatives and friends of the young activists protested energetically against the judge’s decisión, and Yordis García Fournier’s brothers, Niover and Pastor, human rights activist Rosaida Ramírez Matos, and activist Isael Poveda Silva’s father were all arrested. According to Norma Silva, Isael Poveda’s mother, her husband was released early Wednesday morning.

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