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Cuban police detain 20 on US Independence Day

Around 20 Cuban dissidents were detained and most of them released on Thursday in a sweep targeting government opponents, opposition sources said.

“At least 16 of around 20 of those detained are already free,” said Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation group.

Sanchez, whose rights organization is officially illegal, said another four of those arrested had not yet arrived at their homes.

The reports came a day after the Cuban Foreign Ministry said dissident activity had increased with the aid of US diplomats in Havana and warned it would not be tolerated.

“It looks to everyone like a concrete expression of what they said yesterday,” Sanchez said of the detentions.

The reported detentions appeared aimed at heading off a meeting of dissident groups in Havana, Sanchez said.

Leading dissident Martha Beatriz Roque said earlier as many as 40 government opponents had been targeted in the regime’s roundup.

Another opposition leader, Vladimiro Roca, called the sweep “a giant act of repression throughout the entire country.”

He said it targeted above all else dissidents in Havana “because we were planning to hold a meeting here and they did not give permission” for it.

The brief arrests come just days after the EU decided to formally lift sanctions against Cuba imposed following a 2003 dissident crackdown.

Since becoming president in February, Raul Castro, 77, has allowed Cubans to buy computers, own mobile telephones, rent cars and spend nights in hotels previously only accessible to foreigners — if they can afford such luxuries.

But the arrests suggest he may also be as resistant as his older brother Fidel to granting political freedoms to the opposition, critics said.

The Miami-based Cuban Democratic Directorate reported similar numbers and accused the government of “harsh repression.”

The Cuban Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it had learned of plans for “provocative actions” by dissidents planned for yesterday, Independence Day in the US.

The US would be held responsible for whatever happens as Cuba responds to dissident activities, it said.

Cuba views dissidents as mercenaries for the US, which has imposed a trade embargo against Cuba since 1962 aimed at bringing down its socialist government.

Greg Adams, spokesman for the US Interests Section in Havana, said the US had done nothing to increase opposition activity.

“We’re acting as we have acted for a long time,” he said.

The interests section, which substitutes for an embassy because Havana and Washington have no diplomatic relations, works with dissidents and gives money to families of political prisoners.
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