Thursday, June 10, 1999; 7:09 p.m. EDT

HAVANA (AP) -- The government on Thursday downplayed an opposition protest launched this week, calling it a publicity stunt that would have no lasting effect.

``I have seen some stories about it but I haven't paid that much attention,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez told a regular weekly news conference. ``It is a propaganda maneuver that has no impact on our people.''

A group of government opponents on Monday launched a liquid fast, vowing to eat no solid food for 40 days to demand the release of scores of people they described as political prisoners.

The opponents continued their fast Thursday in the front room of an apartment plastered with posters of Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas Gandhi and the late Cuban-American exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa.

The protest is unusual in its boldness and because Cuba's dissident groups rarely work together to do more than issue an occasional statement. The protest joined a dozen different groups, including human rights organizations, anti-abortion groups and political parties.

All are illegal under Cuban law.

The government says there are no political prisoners in Cuba and denies the government violates human rights.