Prisoner of conscience dies in prison

LA HABANA, may 20 (Regina del Sol, AIDH) - Prisoner of conscience Marcelo Amelo Rodrmguez died in Aguadores prison, in Santiago de Cuba, according to Alberto Castillo, president of Ex Club de Presos in Havana.

Amelo Rodrmguez was serving 8 years sentence for "rebellion", but was on parole. He had been approved for a visa to travel to United States, but was taken into jail again.

The cause of death is so far unknown.

Marcelo Amelo Rodrmguez was declared "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty International in 2000, while serving sentence.

The president of the Coordinadora Nacional de Presos y Ex Presos Polmticos, Aida Valdis Santana, exhorts the international organizations of human rights and the International Red Cross to intercede in behalf of the political prisoners in Cuba

Dissident buried amid skirmishes with police

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, May 21 (Luis Alberto Rivera, APLO)  More than a hundred agents of the Department of State Security (DSE) and at least that many more members of the paramilitary Rapid Response Brigades skirmished Monday with

dissidents and relatives attending the funeral of political prisoner Marcelo Diosdado Amelo Rodrmguez, who died Sunday in prison.

Amelo's funeral "was carried out under the most violent wave of repression seen lately," said a local resident who didn't want his name used.

The funeral procession started out a little after 11 a.m. Monday from Amelo's home, where the wake had been held, toward Santa Efigenia cemetery. The approximately 80 dissidents decided to walk ahead of the hearse, disregarding three buses that were waiting to transport them. The hearse carried Amelo's casket, wrapped in a Cuban flag, and the marchers carried the flower arrangements.

No farther than 100 meters from the house, officers of the DSE, who had surrounded the area, asked the marchers to let the hearse through. The dissidents instead tried to take the casket out of the hearse to carry it by hand, police tried to prevent it, and the mob became unruly, crying out "Take the body out," and "Liberty."

At this point, police charged the funeral cortege, hitting and kicking the marchers;

bystanders started calling police bullies and tried to interfere to prevent further abuses. Police reacted by arresting several dissidents, putting them in patrol cars that had to clear their way out through the crowd with sirens blaring. The street was left strewn with flowers.

The hearse's driver, apparently under orders from police, took off, and the remaining

dissidents then boarded the buses and followed. Others continued on foot toward the cemetery.

At this point, observers say, police called in the Rapid Response Brigades. Later it was learned that workers from the port, railroads, customs and several other State enterprises were called.

The marchers were not allowed into the cemetery by the assembled forces. Only some relatives managed to get in.

Amelo, 53, was serving an 8-year sentence for "rebellion" in the Aguadores prison. Saturday at 2 p.m. he felt some chest pain and at 3 a.m. Sunday, he was taken to the Saturnino Lora hospital in Santiago, where he died shortly before 11 a.m.

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