Derechos Humanos

Human Rights

STUDENT WHO QUESTIONED THE PRESIDENT OF THE CUBAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, RICARDO DE ALARCÓN DE QUESADA, AT A COLLEGE OF COMPUTER SCIENCE IN CUBA IS ARRESTED IN HIS HOMETOWN

February 10, 2008

The student, ELIÉCER ÁVILA SICILIA, was arrested at nine in the morning on Saturday, February 9, 2008, by State Securiy agents and by Council of State officers at his home in the batey “El Yarey”, located at Vázquez, in the municipality of Puerto Padre in the province of Las Tunas.

Ávila Sicilia had been warned the day before that he could not leave his home because he would be picked up and taken to Havana. His mother, Elsa Sicilia, said that the family was forbidden from accompanying him. One of the agents, who identified himself as the son of Carlos Lage (vice president of the Council of State and secretary of the Council of Ministers of Cuba), told Avila’s grandmother not to worry because she would soon see her grandson in a nationally televised informative program called “Mesa Redonda”

Ersilia Correoso, member of the Council of Human Rights Rapporteurs of Cuba and the source of this information, stated that she was notified of this news through a letter written by the frightened mother of the arrested student. Correoso went to the home of the young 21 year-old Cuban and found his mother, Elsa Sicilia in tears, terrified that the political police would force her son to publicly retract the questions he had posed to Alarcón.

The computer science student had asked the president of the Cuban National Assembly, before a large audience, reasons why Cubans are not aloud to travel abroad freely or to enter their own hotels in the island. He also addressed the misery of the Cuban people who are paid in a currency worth less than the different currency they must use to purchase goods. 

The Council of Human Rights Rapporteurs of Cuba makes the Cuban government responsible for the physical wellbeing of the computer science student, ELIÉCER ÁVILA SICILIA and asks the international community to demand his immediate release and freedom.

From Havana, Cuba this is a report by Juan Carlos González Leiva. Information Center of the Council of Human Rights Rapporteur of Cuba.

Information recorded, transcribed and translated by the Coalition of Cuban-American Women in the USA.