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   From: pedro1940@progression.net   
      
   Prisoners' wives rally unchallenged in Havana   
      
    Posted on Mon, Mar. 28, 2005   
      
   CUBA   
   Prisoners' wives rally unchallenged in Havana   
   Unlike a week earlier, pro-Castro demonstrators did not show up Sunday to   
   challenge a protest by women seeking the release of their dissident husbands   
   from prison.   
   BY ANITA SNOW   
   Associated Press   
      
   HAVANA - One week after being confronted by a group of pro-government   
   counterprotesters, the wives of jailed dissidents marched peacefully Sunday   
   after Easter services to demand the release of their husbands.   
      
   The counterprotesters from the Federation of Cuban Women had indicated last   
   week they would return again on Sunday, but they did not.   
      
   ''I think that this time they didn't want to make the same big error,   
   especially with the vote in Geneva coming,'' said marcher Gisela Delgado,   
   referring to the expected vote on Cuba's human rights record in mid-April by   
   the United Nations Human Rights Commission.   
      
   Delgado is the wife of prisoner Héctor Palacios, one of 75 dissidents   
   rounded up two years ago in a crackdown on independent writers and   
   journalists.   
      
   Although 14 of the original 75 have been freed on medical parole, the other   
   61 remain behind bars serving sentences ranging from six to 28 years on   
   charges of working with U.S. officials to undermine Fidel Castro's   
   government -- something the dissidents and Washington deny.   
      
   Delgado said her husband has been in the prison hospital for several months   
   with arterial problems.   
      
   She is calling on the government to release him and other political   
   prisoners.   
      
   Sunday's peaceful half-hour march by about 30 women dressed in white, each   
   carrying a single orange gladiolus after services at Santa Rita Catholic   
   Church contrasted with that of the previous week, when more than 100 women   
   government supporters held a noisy counterprotest with shouts of ``Viva   
   Fidel!''   
      
   While the wives demanded the release of their husbands, the protesters from   
   the Federation of Cuban Woman called for the release of the ''Five   
   Heroes'' -- five Cuban intelligence agents serving long terms in U.S.   
   federal prisons.   
      
      
   http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/11246774.htm   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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