Havana
Cuban courts this week began handing out lengthy jail sentences to dissidents arrested in the Castro regime’s biggest political crackdown in decades. Opposition political party leader Hector Palacios was sentenced to 25 years, and Cuba’s best-known dissident, poet and journalist Raul Rivero, was sentenced to 20 years. “This is so arbitrary for a man whose only crime is to write what he thinks,” said Blanca Reyes, Rivero’s wife. The government recently arrested 78 dissidents, charging them with opposing President Fidel Castro and “working with a foreign power to undermine the government.” The crackdown came in response to efforts by the Bush administration to encourage Cuban dissent; many of those arrested had been meeting regularly at the home of the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, James Cason. Castro recently denounced Cason as “an incubator of counter-revolution.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Georgia's new foreign influence billUnder the Radar Critics claim the 'Russian law' could stifle dissent and wreck the country's chances of joining the EU
-
'Making a police state out of the liberal university'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
8 looming climate tipping points that imperil our planetThe Explainer New reports detail the thresholds we may be close to crossing
