Save Life of Student Leader Nestor Rodríguez Lobaina

On August 21, 2001 we were informed that Nestor Rodríguez Lobaina, president of the organization Young Cubans for Democracy, had been savagely beaten in the Guantanamo prison were he is serving a six year prison term for his activities as political dissident. During the beating he suffered a fractured jaw and contusions through out his body. He was transferred to the provincial hospital in Guantanamo. Arriving at the hospital he received another beating despite his head being sealed in plaster and leaving him immobilized. A guard named Manuel hopped on top of him and beat him. He was then placed in a punishment cell without lighting or air-conditioning, nor had he been fed for the previous day.

Amnesty International Urgent Action 169/99 Prisoner of conscience

CUBA Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina

Political activist Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina was arbitrarily arrested on 11 July 1999, and his whereabouts are now unknown. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression. Under harsh new legislation aimed at silencing dissent, he could face a long prison sentence.

Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, who is president of the Movimiento de Jovenes Cubanos por la Democracia (MJCD), Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, was arrested at the MJCD coordinator's home in Santiago de Cuba. It is believed he was arrested because he had begun a hunger strike in solidarity with a group of dissidents in Havana known as the Ayunantes de Tamarindo 34, Tamarindo 34 Hunger-strikers, who began a 40-day hunger strike on 7 June to demand the release of all political prisoners and respect for human rights in Cuba.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina has been arrested several times. He was last detained for several days in February and March 1999. He was detained from 7-15 December 1998 after making a personal protest at the Cuban government's refusal to let him leave the country to attend a conference in Paris marking the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (see UA 307/98, AMR 25/28/98, 9 December 1998, and follow-up, AMR 25/29/98, 18 December 1998). He had previously been arrested in April 1997 and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for "disrespect", and "resisting authority", after criticising the Fourteenth Youth and Student Festival.

He was also arrested on 6 June 1996, reportedly in connection with the MJCD's peaceful attempts to organize a movement for university reform in the capital. He was sentenced to 12 months' "restricted liberty", as well as five years of "destierro", internal exile or confinement, in his home town of Baracoa, Guantanamo province.

On 16 February 1999 Cuba's National Assembly passed tough new legislation aimed at combatting political dissent, called the "Ley de Proteccion de la Independencia Nacional y la Economia de Cuba", "Law for the Protection of the National Independence and Economy of Cuba". Under this new law, dissidents and journalists deemed to be working against the Cuban state reportedly face up to 20 years' imprisonment. The law calls for seven to 15 years' imprisonment for passing information to the United States that could be used to bolster anti-Cuban measures such as the US economic blockade of the island, rising to 20 years if the information is acquired surreptitiously. The legislation also bans the ownership, distribution or reproduction of "subversive materials" from the US government, and proposes jail terms of up to five years for collaborating with radio and TV stations and publications deemed to be assisting US policy.