RELEASE OF FRANCISCO CHAVIANO, A POLITICAL PRISONER. IN SPITE

OF THE FACT THAT CHAVIANO IS OUT OF HIS ISOLATION CELL,

HIS HEALTH CONDITION HAS NOT IMPROVED.

14 DISSIDENTS JOINED THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY.

New York, October 23, 1995. A TRP delegation consisting of Sandro OTTONI, Begoņa RODRIGUEZ and Tanja RIZMAN, in the last few days, met with numerous representatives of the Cuban opposition and the family members of the political prisoner Francisco CHAVIANO whose release has recently been requested also by a resolution of the European Parliament.

Begoņa RODRIGUEZ, a member of the TRP delegation on the issue said: "Ana AGUILILLA, the wife of CHAVIANO, has been able to see him a few hours after release from the maximum security cell where he has been confined for 25 days following a hunger strike to demand a review of the trial and the intolerable conditions of his detention. Just the previous day he had been beaten and left naked in a cell on a drenched floor. He suffers from an ulcer and they don't give any medication, the food is horrible and insufficient but now they have put him back with other regular prisoners." There is currently a campaign mounted by the TRP on the case of CHAVIANO and other political prisoners.

According to Sandro OTTONI, "The Cuban opposition is systematically persecuted in order to prevent it from exercising any activity in favor of the democratization of the Country. The entire population is subject to an Orwellian police regime that organizes the "consensus" with cheap rum and derisory privileges, and implacably represses any freedom of speech. Here, everything that is not mandatory, is forbidden."

Some of the most prominent members of the Cuban opposition, among them Elezardo SANCHEZ and Aida VALDEZ, who have spent many years in jail, and Francisco CHAVIANO, his wife and the managers of his organization, have joined the TRP.

Before leaving the Country, at the airport, the TRP delegation was stopped and searched. All the documents received from the dissidents were seized on charges that they violated the law on "counter-revolution propaganda".

Transnational Radical Party