MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Released Cuban dissident arrives in Chile as political refuge

Izquierdo Hernandez and his family

One of the 20 released Cuban political prisoners who arrived in Spain last month left on Tuesday to settle in Chile. Jose Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernandez, 44 arrived in Santiago de Chile Wednesday accompanied by his wife, children and several other family members after having stayed almost two weeks in a Madrid hotel.

The Chilean government has offered him the status of political refugee, as well as providing him with residency and work permits.

Izquierdo is one of the 20 dissidents who went to Spain on July 13 after the totalitarian regime in Havana decided to release them as part of the process of dialogue with Cuba’s Catholic Church, with the mediation of the Spanish government.

Like other exiles in Spain, he was one of the “Group of 75” dissidents rounded up and jailed in the “Black Spring” crackdown of 2003.

Izquierdo, coordinator of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation and a delegate of the Democratic Liberal Party, was arrested on March 19, 2003, for backing the Varela Project, which demanded greater freedom and civil liberties for the island’s population.

The dissident was sentenced to 16 years in jail, of which he served seven.

President Raul Castro’s government says it will release the 32 remaining Group of 75 prisoners over the next three months. Twenty-two other dissidents were previously paroled on medical grounds and another died behind bars earlier this year after an 85-day hunger strike.