AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

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AAAS Human Rights Action Network

FACTS OF THE CASE:

Cuban prosecutors have requested that engineer and physicist Felix A. Bonne Carcases and economist Maria Beatriz Roque Cabello be sentenced to five years in prison. Although the two have been detained for more than one year without trial, no trial date has yet been set.

Ms. Roque Cabello, who suffers from ulcers and other ailments, has reportedly been held in a military hospital since June 1998. Her family members fear that once she is released from the hospital she will be sent to a prison far from their home in Havana, as her cell in Manto Negro Prison near Havana, where she was previously held, has already been occupied by another inmate.

Bonne Carcases and Roque Cabello were arrested on 16 July 1997, along with three others, for their membership in the Internal Dissidents' Working Group for the Analysis of the Cuban Socio-Economic Situation. Several members of the group were arrested for a short period of time (hours or days) on 27 June 1997 following a press conference in which they criticized an official document entitled "The Party of Unity, Democracy and the Human Rights We Defend.

In September 1993, AAAS protested the dismissal of Dr. Bonne Carcases from his university position. He was among twenty university professors fired for signing and submitting an open letter from Cuban Professionals to an Ibero-American summit meeting, calling for the universal right of free expression of all Cubans. Dr. Bonne Carcases joined the dissident movement in 1990. He was one of the founders of the Cuban Civic Movement and one of the first members of the dissident organization Concilio Cubano.

The detentions of Felix A. Bonne Carcases and Maria Beatriz Roque Cabello constitute serious violations of international human rights standards enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted without opposition by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. They include:

• Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person (Article 3);
• no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile (Article 9); and
• everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19).

(Source of information for this update is the Associated Free Press. Previous sources of information include the Cuba Free Press Project; Reuters, 7 April 1998, article entitled "Freed Cuban Prisoners Plan to Leave Canada for U.S." by Theresa Ebden; and Amnesty International.)

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please send telexes, telegrams, faxes, or airmail letters:

• Calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Felix A. Bonne Carcases and Maria Beatriz Roque Cabello on the grounds that they are prisoners of conscience;
• expressing concern about Maria Beatriz Roque Cabello's deteriorating health;
• asking for details about their current status; and
• urging that their release and that of other prisoners of conscience be unconditional.

APPEAL AND INQUIRY MESSAGES SHOULD BE SENT TO:

Sr. Carlos Dotres Martinez
Ministro de la Salud Publica
Ministerio de la Salud Publica
Calle 23, No. 301
Vedado, La Habana, Cuba
Salutation: Senor Ministro

Dr. Juan Escalona Reguera
Fiscal General de la Republica
San Rafael 3
La Habana, Cuba
Fax: 011 53 7 333 164
Salutation: Senor Fiscal General

Sr. Jefe del Centro de Investigaciones del Departamento de
Seguridad del Estado (DSE)
Versalles
Santiago de Cuba
Prov. Oriente, Cuba
Salutation: Sr. Director

COPIES SENT TO:

Sr. Roberto Robaina Gonzalez
Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores
Calzada No. 360
Vedado
La Habana, Cuba
Fax: 011 53 7 333 085 or 335 261
Salutation: Senor Ministro

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