They were all sentenced to more than 15 years for not agreeing with the official or party line.
The blow that the government has struck against the peaceful opposition within the island (no home search turned up bombs or guns) shows that the dissidents were doing a good job.
To accuse them of ''subverting the established order'' demonstrates how feeble the administration's hold on power really is. Ideas cannot be smothered, even if those at the top think that they have eliminated all opposition.
………………….To complain in a soft voice on the bus, in the bread queue and at the grocery store are the are the only escape mechanisms for the bitterness of not being able to say what we are thinking.
My husband told me during the last visit that State Security agents tell him about me every day, with whom I meet and what I say. This is their way of putting the fear in him and make him understand that I, too, could go to prison.
That's the daily blackmail at State Security headquarters. It's the blackmail of those who fear the power of humble but firm words with which some of us dare call a spade a spade.
Maybe some more of us will still be stuffed into a cell in a Cuban prison, but I'm positive that they won't be able to smother ideas.
In the world beyond, Castro does not have absolute power.
Claudia Márquez Linares is an independent journalist in Cuba. Her husband is among a group of peaceful dissidents recently rounded up and sentenced to prison terms in Cuba.
In her telephone interview with El Nuevo Herald, Valdés indicated that Embassy personnel "who are obviously not diplomats, but rather oppressors", exited the Embassy building carrying hammers and sledgehammers to break the protesters chains, whose hands and harms they beat, as well as striking several observers standing near by. "The objective of delivering this letter, addressed to Fidel Castro, to the Ambassador was not achieved, but all the press present at the site bore witness of the violent attacks by these purported diplomats", said Valdés.***