State Security Offensive Against Activists in Granma Province

HAVANA CubaPress ­ Luis Mario Parés Estrada, press secretary for the underground November Thirty Democratic Party, reports recent political police actions against members of that opposition organization in Manzanillo, Granma Province.

Parés reported that on 21 June State Security issued orders that several Party members turn themselves in to SS headquarters, including Salvador Mesa, Odilio Antúnez, and Manuel de Jesús Castillo. Also ordered to SS offices was 68-year-old Virginia Estrada, Parés' mother.

Referring to his mother, Parés stated "She's not a political activist and they know it ­ They've ordered her in to scare her, to see if that discourages me from continuing with this struggle for human rights".

Other Party activists have been subjected to prolonged interrogations by State Security, explained Parés ­ interrogations which "more than actual questionings are long sessions of verbal insults and threats, because what the military does is attempt to humiliate and intimidate opposition workers".

Parés himself was recently submitted to one of those interrogation sessions, about which he said "For three hours, two high level officers, a Major and a Captain they call 'The Butcher', barraged me with insults and false accusations, calling me a drug addict and homosexual and all sorts of other things, trying to push me over the edge and make me lose my temper, so they could charge me with 'disrespect towards authorities' [a crime in Cuba for which political opponents are frequently imprisoned ­ Ed.]. They fabricate accusations and confessions supposedly made by other activists."

In the brief declaration, relayed by telephone, Parés added that "State Security is trying to divide and discredit the opposition movement".

Parés is a former political prisoner, arrested for what the government terms "spreading enemy propaganda".