Leading Cuban dissidents have asked the French embassy in Havana to intercede on behalf of Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina. Rodríguez, leader of the Cuban Youth Movement of Democracy, has been on a hunger strike since Saturday, when police in Barracoa in far eastern Cuba blocked him from a boarding a bus for Havana. Rodríguez is protesting for the right to freely travel within Cuba, just another right the dictatorship has reserved for itself.
The Agenda for the Transition, led by Martha Beatriz Roque and Vladimiro Roca, asked in a communique for French diplomats to travel to Barracoa and escort Rodríguez to Havana. (They targeted the French because France currently holds the presidency of the European Union.)
"The confinement to which Nestor Rodríguez has been subjected is illegal, because it has not been determined by any court, it simply is a decision of the police," the communique states.
The dissidents are asking for the French to help, in compliance with an European Union decision last month to lift diplomatic sanctions on Cuba while enhancing contacts with the anti-government opposition.
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