ROME, March 3 (Reuters) - Leading leftist deputies urged the Italian government on Wednesday to condemn Cuba's handling of a cause celebre dissident trial and detentions of activists.
Politicians of the Democrats of the Left (DS), the biggest party in the ruling coalition, called on the government to denounce ``the unacceptable and odious political character of a trial that damages basic elements of human and civil rights.''
The emergency parliamentary question was submitted by DS chief Walter Veltroni, deputy prime minister in the last government, together with DS whip Fabio Mussi and Marco Pezzoni, DS leader in the lower house foreign affairs committee.
The trial for sedition of the island's four best known opposition figures, which ended in Havana late on Monday, is Cuba's biggest political case of the decade.
The four -- Vladimiro Roca, Marta Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne and Rene Gomez Manzano -- were detained on July 16, 1997, after issuing an open critique of the ruling Communist Party and urging reforms. They have spent the last 19 months in jail.
Cuba on Tuesday freed dozens of anti-government activists detained at the weekend in a major crackdown on protests at the trial of the so-called ``Group of Four.''
The dissident roundup has already brought foreign condemnation, notably from the United States and Cuba's two largest commercial allies Spain and Canada.
The DS deputies called on Italy's centre-left government to ``demand the immediate release of the four detainees and all the other dissidents arrested in recent hours.''
13:47 03-03-99
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