Cuban dissidents say they're being held at home after activist's death

[Jimmy2]

Cuban security forces, fearing protests over the hunger-strike death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata, have detained or kept home at least 50 dissidents and deployed agents to the cemetery where he may be buried, island activists said Wednesday.

Zapata's mother told supporters in Miami Wednesday afternoon that she and his body had just arrived at her home in Banes, in the eastern province of Holguin, and that government security officials were insisting that he be buried at 6pm.

``It's not important, but they will pay for this. They will pay for this,'' Reina Luisa Tamayo said between sobs in a phone conversation with the Miami-based Cuban Democratic Directorate.

Dissident Juan Verdecia Ebora, speaking from the home, told El Nuevo Herald earlier in the day that security forces had surrounded the house, established a checkpoint at the main entrance to Banes and deployed uniformed guards around the town's cemetery.

Since Zapata's death Tuesday, ``the government has unleashed a wave of repression . . . because it does not want people at the funeral or other activities,'' said Elizardo Sánchez, head of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation in Havana.

Security forces across the island have detained more than 25 activists and restricted an equal number to their homes, warning them not to participate in any activities marking the case, Sánchez said in a telephone interview.

Many dissidents nevertheless are marking Zapata's death with ceremonies at their homes, he added, and one group in the north-central city of Matanzas planned a street protest Wednesday.

In the city of Holguín, near Banes, independent journalist Caridad Caballero told El Nuevo Herald that security forces were surrounding her home on all four sides, and had warned her that she would be detained if she stepped outside.

Independent journalist Luis Felipe Rojas, also in Holguin, said security forces also were stationed outside his home and had detained or restricted to their homes other dissidents in Santiago, Guantánamo, Moa, Antilla and Camagüey -- all in eastern Cuba.

[thechenman]

All this and people wonder why the U.S. refuses to drop the embargo against Cuba.