August 16th., 1997

Cuba frees dissident journalist Raul Rivero

HAVANA, Aug 15 (Reuter) - Cuban authorities on Friday freed dissident journalist Raul Rivero after detaining him for four days for questioning, dissident sources said.

Rivero, one of the best known of Cuba's dissident journalists, was detained on Tuesday at his Havana home. Dissident colleagues said he was freed around midday on Friday after being held at an Interior Ministry house in a Havana suburb.

Rivero was not charged, the sources said. But they said he was given to understand by security officials during the questioning that he should either give up independent journalism or leave the country.

Rivero is head of a news agency called Cuba Press, one of a handful of small and illegal news organizations set up by dissident journalists over the last two years that seek to provide an alternative to the state-controlled media in Cuba, a one-party communist state. They publish their work abroad.

Rivero could not be reached for comment at his home on Friday afternoon, but was said to be out visiting his mother.

Several dissident journalists, including two earlier this month, have left the country over the past two years, saying they were pressured into leaving by authorities.

Four leading dissidents who were detained in mid-July are still being held. The four -- Vladimiro Roca, Martha Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne and Rene Gomez Manzano -- have not been charged but authorities have said they are being investigated on suspicion of ``counter-revolutionary'' activities.

The U.S. State Department on Friday condemned the detentions as violations of the U.N. human rights charter.

``The arrest in recent weeks of dozens of pro-democracy and human rights activists in Cuba for no other reason than their attempt to exercise internationally guaranteed freedoms ought to be condemned, and we condemn it,'' spokesman James Rubin said.

``The struggle for freedom and peaceful democratic change being fought in Cuba deserves our attention and the attention of all democratic nations,'' he added.

``The government of Cuba is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, yet it continues to pursue repressive policies and abuse systematically its people in denying them the exercise of their rights and freedoms.

``I understand what these particular people were thought of doing wrong was telling the truth about the Cuban economy, telling the truth about what's going on there. And I didn't know that truth was a crime under the International Declaration of Human Rights,'' he said.

17:14 08-15-97

Distributed By Cubanet