On March 1, the trial of Vladimiro Roca, son of one...

On March 1, the trial of Vladimiro Roca, son of one of the founders of the Communist Party, economist Marta Beatriz Roque, attorney René Gomez Manzano and former teacher Felix Bonne, held in prison for 17 months on charges of "sedition and acts against State security," opened in Havana. The 4, who are all moderate dissidents and against the U.S. embargo and the use of violence, are charged with having organized a press conference and distributed a political document entitled "The Country Belongs to Everyone," in which they condemned the authoritarian regime, called on Cubans to boycott the single party elections and asked foreign companies to suspend investments in Cuba. About one hundred people who opposed the trial were either arrested or confined to their homes with police officers standing guard at the door, to stop them attending the proceedings. Representatives from various Western embassies were also prevented from following the trial, which at the last minute was transferred to a court, heavily guarded by police, in the outskirts. The release of the 4 defendants was requested by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Cuba in 1998, the European Union, and the Canadian and Spanish Governments.