Dissidents Arrested with Biscet Are Freed

By Fara Armenteros, UPECI

Güines, March 10, 2003 (www.cubanet.org) - Political prisoners Raúl Arencibia Fajardo, Virgilio Marante Güelmes and Orlando Zapata Tamayo were freed Friday the 7th. during the night hours, after three months of unjustified incarceration.

The three activists were arrested on December 2002 at Arencibia Fajardo’s home, together with Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, who up to now, remains in jail at Combinado del Este's prison, in the capital. All of them were charged with public disorder.

Arencibia Fajardo and Marante Güelmes were imprisoned at Valle Grande jail and Zapata Tamayo at Guanajay jail, both of them in the outskirts of the city of Havana.

“After three months of incarceration I wish to be with my family and find out about my brothers in the struggle, among them Oscar Elías Biscet, Leonardo Miguel Bruzón Ávila and Juan Carlos Leiva,” declared Arencibia Fajardo to UPECI (Spanish initials for Union of Independent Cuban Journalists) a few hours after his release.

On his part, Orlando Zapata said that, as he told prison authorities, these three months in jail served to confirm his conviction to keep fighting for human rights and for the freedom of those brothers that still remain in jail, coinciding with Arencibia and Marante Güelmes.