AP:Cuba Transfers 18 Dissidents to Hospital

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December 1, 2004

Cuba Transfers 18 Dissidents to Hospital

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:36 p.m. ET

HAVANA (AP) -- As many as 18 jailed dissidents have been transferred from provincial penitentiaries to the main prison hospital in Havana, raising hopes that they will soon be freed, relatives of the dissidents said Wednesday.

Activist physician Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and veteran opposition politician Hector Palacios were among those transferred late Tuesday to the hospital at Combinado del Este Prison, their wives said.

Cuban President Fidel Castro's communist government released five dissidents in the past week, all after checkups at the same prison hospital.

They included perhaps Cuba's best known dissident, Raul Rivero, an independent journalist and poet.

Those released this week and all those transferred to the prison hospital on Tuesday were among 75 independent journalists, opposition politicians, rights activists and others rounded by in a March 2003 crackdown.

Palacios' wife, Gisela Delgado, told The Associated Press that her husband called her last night from the prison hospital. He had been serving a 25-year sentence at a penitentiary in the western province of Pinar del Rio.

Biscet's wife, Elsa Morejon, confirmed that her husband also had been transferred to the prison hospital from Pinar del Rio. He was sentenced to 25 years as well.

After surveying relatives of other imprisoned dissidents, Delgado said as many as 18 were transferred to the Havana prison hospital on Tuesday.

In previous months, seven other dissidents were also freed, also for medical reasons, bringing the total of those released thus far to 12 and leaving another 63 behind bars.

Castro's government made no public statement about the releases, but analysts said Cuba was eager to avoid the possibility the dissidents would die in jail, and wanted to show flexibility to the European Union and Spain amid warming relations.

``They want to clean up their image,'' Delgado said of Cuban authorities.

The EU is Cuba's most important source of tourism and trade, representing about 80 percent of the island's imports. The new Socialist government of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has taken the lead in pressing other European countries to encourage the Caribbean island to open up.

In Prague, former Czech President Vaclav Havel -- a former dissident himself -- welcomed the release of the five Cuban dissidents this week, his secretary Jakub Haldik said Wednesday. ``Rivero's release is a very good news,'' he quoted Havel as saying. ``It's also a good sign that something is happening in Cuba.''