THE WORLD - News from Aug. 28, 2009

Diplomats from European Union countries angered Cuba when they went Thursday to the home of a jailed dissident to express their concern about the case and what they view as government efforts to quell dissent.

Cuba’s government summoned ambassadors or charges d’affaires from the five countries whose diplomats made the visit -- Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Germany and Britain -- to say they had threatened recently renewed EU-Cuba dialogue.

The diplomats met with the wife of physician Dariel “Darsi” Ferrer. He has been held since July 21 on charges that he bought two bags of cement on the black market and verbally assaulted a neighbor.

Ferrer, 39, has held walks along Havana’s seaside boulevard to support human rights.

Swedish diplomat Ingemar Cederberg said the case looked suspiciously like a political prosecution hidden behind trumped-up criminal charges and needed to be “clarified.”