Human Rights Watch today applauded the release of political dissident Vladimiro Roca Atúnez, one of Cuba's most prominent pro-democracy activists. Roca was freed on Sunday, two months before the expiration of his five-year sentence for sedition
Three of Roca's co-defendants, sentenced together with him in 1999, were released in May 2000 after serving out part of their sentences. Other prominent activists, such as Oscar Elías Biscet González, remain incarcerated.
"By freeing Vladimiro Roca before the expiration of his sentence, the Cuban government has sent an encouraging message," said José Miguel Vivanco, Executive Director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. "But it is important that the government not stop here: it should release all of the human rights activists and political dissidents who are incarcerated in violation of their fundamental rights."
Roca and his three co-defendants, attorney René Gómez Manzano, engineer Félix Bonne Carcassés, and economist Marta Beatriz Roque, were originally arrested on July 15, 1997. Their arrest came after they published a joint declaration on the Cuban economy, human rights, and democracy.
Roca, an economist and former MiG fighter pilot, is the son of the late Blas Roca, considered a hero of the Cuban revolution.
Cuba continues to detain many other political prisoners. In July, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (Comisión Cubana de Derechos Humanos y Reconciliación Nacional), a respected Havana-based nongovernmental group, released a partial list of political prisoners that included 246 cases they considered to be reliably documented.
