The communist regime of Fidel Castro continues its campaign of harassing peaceful dissidents.
Most recently, the regime prevented some Cubans from attending a meeting at the home of Michael Parmly, head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Before Martha Beatriz Rogue was able to leave for the event, a Cuban agent entered her home and attacked and injured her.
Ms. Roque is co-founder of the Association to Support Civil Society in Cuba. She had been arrested along with seventy-seven other dissidents in March 2003 in what the U.S. State Department describes as the "Black Spring" crackdown. Ms. Roque was held in a Cuban prison until July 2004.
As reported in the Miami Herald newspaper, Ms. Roque described the attack in a call made to a Miami, Florida, radio station. She said, "A strong young man attacked me.... The world must know this," she said. "To my brothers and sisters in Miami, please let the world know."
In another incident, Elsa Morejon Almagro, the wife of nonviolence advocate Oscar Elias Biscet, was shoved inside a taxi by two self-identified Cuban government security agents and forced to return home. Those dissidents who did participate were also subjected to harassment.
Felix Bonne was confronted by a government-sponsored mob when he returned home. The mob threatened to drag him through the streets if he continued his peaceful activities. Mr. Bonne taught engineering at the University of Havana and is a founder of an organization of professors advocating political reform.
U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli says that the United States will not cease shining a spotlight on the fact that Cuban citizens continue to be denied basic liberties:
"The United States and others in the international community will not allow these champions of human rights to be forgotten nor will we let their courageous action in pursuit of freedom be in vain."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the U.S. will not rest "until this hemisphere is the best example of a hemisphere united in freedom and democracy. We cannot do that," she says, "until there is a free Cuba."
The preceding was an editorial reflecting the views of the United States Government.
