World Press Archive
2010-04-19 / Latin American Herald Tribune
Cuban Dissident Receives Spanish Citizenship
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HAVANA – Cuban dissident Marta Beatriz Roque told Efe she has been granted Spanish citizenship thanks to efforts of relatives in the Canary Islands.
Roque, 64, said she received the news Wednesday at the Spanish Embassy in Havana.
“It’s citizenship authorized by choice, given by my parents, who came (from Spain) to Cuba very young and died in Havana,” the former political prisoners said.
She emphasized that, besides her relatives, other people supported her for a long time during the procedure, among them former Canarian regional president Fernando Fernandez.
Although she still has not received her Spanish passport, she is planning to travel to the Canary Islands for medical “treatment and return to Cuba.”
Roque was the only woman among the 75 dissidents rounded up and jailed in the “Black Spring” crackdown of March 2003.
Fifty-three of the group remain behind bars, while Roque and 18 others – one of whom later died – have been paroled on medical grounds. Another prisoner, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died in custody in February after an 85-day hunger strike.
“I’ve never thought of leaving the country,” Roque, who suffers from hypertension and diabetes, said Thursday.
“My health is affected. You only have to look at me,” she told Efe. “My family wants me to get myself a medical checkup in Spain, that’s the objective.”
Roque has continued with her political activism since being paroled in 2004.
2013-04-22 / The Miami Herald
U.S.: Short-term detentions in Cuba reach record levels
Cuba saw a record number of “politically motivated and at times violent short-term detentions” during 2012, according to the U.S. State Department’s “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” which was released Friday...more
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/19/3354333/us-short-term-detentions-in-cuba.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/19/3354333/us-short-term-detentions-in-cuba.html#storylink=cpy
2013-04-18 / The Washington Post
Cuba’s Ladies in White due in Brussels to receive 2005 Sakharov human rights award
Members of Cuba’s Ladies in White opposition group will finally pick up Europe’s top human rights prize from 2005 in person next week in Belgium, the European Union and the daughter of the group’s former leader said Wednesday...more
2013-04-16 / The Washington Post
Cuba avoids oil cutoff for now as Chavez ally narrowly wins Venezuela presidential election
Cubans were relieved Monday by the announcement that the late leader Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor had been elected Venezuela’s new president, apparently allowing their country to dodge a threatened cutoff of billions of dollars in subsidized oil...more
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