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Cuban Dissident Accuses Government of Smear Campaign
Former political prisoner Marta Beatriz Roque on Wednesday said that Cuba’s Communist government “is using low and dirty methods” to discredit the opposition and confuse public opinion.
Roque earlier this month headed a hunger strike that was joined by a score of other dissidents to demand the release from prison of a colleague and to protest the circumstances the opposition finds itself in, a protest state television described as a “media show” and an anti-Cuba campaign.
“Indisputably, the government is very bothered by the strike and the repercussions it has had internationally,” Roque told Efe in a response to Tuesday’s piece on state television.
The dissident economist said that the reproduction of images taken inside her home and the broadcasting of several of her telephone conversations in the reporting are “violations of privacy. What has been done is unconstitutional.”
“All that is manipulated,” she added, going on to say that she is not going to “justify at all what the government says because they are telling lies and we have the truth.”
The reporting on Cuban state television said that at least 13 dissidents who had declared themselves to be on hunger strike were actually eating during that time and it presented the testimony of a man said to be one of Roque’s neighbors who claimed that the dissident asked him to buy fruit and vegetables during the protest.
After pursuing the hunger strike for eight days, Roque announced that she was terminating the fast on Sept. 18 upon learning that Cuban authorities had promised to release Jorge Vazquez, though he has yet to be let out of prison.
The Cuban government views the dissidents as counterrevolutionaries and “mercenaries” funded by the U.S. government and Cuban exile groups.
Published in Notitas de Noticias
2012-09-28 14:21:54
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