By Nancy San Martin - Nov. 30, 2004 -- Miami Herald

Cuban authorities have little tolerance for dissent, despite the release of some government opponents, activists said. 

Cuban dissidents Wednesday complained of continuing harassment and unjust arrests despite this week's release of five government critics from a group of 75 jailed last year.

''The persecution on the part of the government has continued and, in fact, has gotten worse,'' one Havana activist told The Herald in a telephone interview. ``It is a tenacious and persistent war.''

Cuban authorities habitually detain and interrogate government opponents, intimidate them with surveillance operations and often threaten them with long prison terms.

The release of five jailed dissidents on Monday and Tuesday, including renowned writer Raúl Rivero, received international attention. And expectations of more paroles were raised Wednesday with the transfer of more than a dozen other activists from prisons to a prison hospital in Havana. All of the releases so far came after poor health assessments at the same facility.

CHECKED OUT

Among those reportedly undergoing medical checkups at the Combinado del Este prison were Oscar Elías Biscet, an outspoken physician who has been detained numerous times, and Héctor Palacios, a veteran opposition party leader. But even as the releases were celebrated, the U.S. State Department reported that at least 11 other dissidents were thrown in jail in recent months. ''There have been a series of arrests during the course of the year,'' a department official said. ``The regime does not get a bonus card for releasing people who should have never been incarcerated.'' Cuba's jails contain an estimated 300 political prisoners, including 80 deemed by Amnesty International to be ''prisoners of conscience'' -- peaceful activists incarcerated for their political beliefs or background. That means Cuba has the highest number of such prisoners in the Western Hemisphere.

On Nov. 1, Alexander Santos Hernández, 29, began serving a six-month sentence on a ''disobedience'' conviction. His apparent crime was collecting signatures to force a referendum on democratic reforms.

The August arrest at his home in the western province of Holguin came after the referendum drive's leader, Oswaldo Payá, visited Santos.

TROUBLE BEGAN

''After Payá's visit, authorities began trouble for the young man,'' said Ernesto Martini Fonseca, 36, of the Havana-based Christian Liberation Movement, which is spearheading the referendum effort known as the Varela Project. ``The government is letting out some and keeping others.

''This is very difficult,'' Martini said. ``Those who have been released are in very poor health, some even facing possible death. But despite all that, the opposition movement continues to grow with new people.''

Last year's arrests of 75 dissidents received worldwide condemnation. The dissidents were accused of collaborating with U.S. diplomats in Havana to undermine Fidel Castro's communist government and received sentences of up to 28 years.

This week's releases are widely viewed as a move by Castro's government to mend relations with the European Union, which is in the process of reviewing its sanctions on Cuba because of the island's human rights record. ''A change of tactic on the part of Europeans to end the pressure now, before everybody is released, is a mistake,'' said the State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``It will dishearten the opposition and will embolden and give force to the hard-liners of the regime.''