Cuba Frees Another Dissident

Cuba’s Communist government freed an independent journalist Monday, the 14th member of a group of 75 jailed dissidents released on medical grounds as Havana seeks to repair relations with the European Union.

Jorge Olivera Castillo, 43, was freed after serving 20 months of an 18-year prison sentence on charges of conspiring with the United States against Cuba.

He said he was suffering from chronic colitis and hypertension.

“I only did what is normal in other countries, to dissent and say the truth, and for that I was treated like a criminal,” Olivera said in a telephone interview.

Olivera said EU diplomatic pressure had been instrumental in obtaining his release and better treatment for jailed dissidents.

The former television editor worked for an independent news agency, Havana Press, which is coordinated by a Cuban exile in Miami.

He also contributed to the country’s first dissident magazine, De Cuba, which was closed down after publishing two issues last year.

The 75 pro-democracy activists, independent journalists and opposition figures were arrested in March 2003 in Cuba’s worst crackdown in decades.

The releases are widely seen as an attempt by President Fidel Castro’s government to repair relations with the European Union, which has pressed for the release of all 75.

In an effort led by Spain’s new Socialist government, the 25- nation EU is considering whether to end punitive measures it adopted in June 2003 in response to the crackdown on dissidents.