Posted on 10/31/2003 12:29:39 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA - The wife of a political activist imprisoned in a crackdown on dissent said she was detained Wednesday by authorities who warned her to stop publishing a magazine once produced by some of the jailed dissidents.
Claudia Marquez told The Associated Press that two officials picked her up at home and questioned her at a police station for three hours.
Marquez said the officials asked her about the magazine De Cuba - From Cuba - a collection of original writings by some of the island's independent journalists.
Just two monthly editions of the magazine were published before the March crackdown. Magazine editor Ricardo Gonzalez and adviser Raul Rivero were among 75 independent journalists, activists and others arrested and sentenced to long terms.
Marquez and several other wives of imprisoned activists recently published a third edition, a compilation of stories carried by international media about the crackdown.
She said the officials told her "they would not permit another publication."
Marquez, 26, is married to Osvaldo Alfonso, leader of an opposition political party. He was sentenced to 18 years on charges of working with American officials to undermine the socialist system of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Marquez has also written occasional columns for the San Antonio Express-News since January. "We are greatly relieved to hear she has been released," said the paper's editor, Robert Rivard.
Although the prisoners' wives have been vocal since the crackdown, this was the first report of one being detained and questioned.
What's remarkable, what history will record as the truth, is the love of Cuba's political prisoners for their people and for freedom. It's the kind of unlimited courage that confuses their jailers. It's the fortitude of their spirit while at total disadvantage, their inner peace in the face of those who have only power, tyrannical power, and compensate for the strength of the powerless ones by inflicting pain upon them.
The prisoners of the Cuba spring and all other political prisoners in Cuba are sustained by their faith and the prayers and solidarity of all sensitive people inside and outside our island. But this should not be a spectacle for Cubans. Every drop in the torrent of pain that flows from these prisoners and their relatives is shed by every Cuban -- every elderly person and poor child, every disheartened youth who plunges into the sea, every family that suffers anguish and oppression and even by those who talk and only talk, complain or dwell on the subject but give no support.
Each drop of that suffering is shed by you. Don't pity the prisoners, because if they suffer hunger and thirst, they are blessed because they hunger and thirst for justice. There are no blessings, however, for those who show no solidarity because they don't want to get in trouble.***
Come to think of it, the whole country IS IN "jail" already. How sad.
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