From Herald Wire Services

             HAVANA -- An unidentified protester shouting human rights slogans was attacked
             by Communist Party activists Thursday in a Havana suburb.

             The man was set upon by party members who had gathered at Butari Park in
             Havana's Lawton neighborhood to hail the current meeting of the Congress of the
             Young Communists Union, eyewitnesses said.

             The Communist rally coincided with a ceremony scheduled in the park by dissidents
             to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

             In the middle of the crowd the man, about 30 years old, shouted ``Long live human
             rights! Long live democracy! Freedom for political prisoners!'' witnesses said.

             The man was said by witnesses to be holding copies of the Universal Declaration of
             Human rights and the New Testament.

             The man was knocked down and dragged to a neighboring street that had been
             closed to traffic by police. When foreign journalists tried to follow the action, they
             were roughed up by the pro-government demonstrators. One television cameraman
             had his camera taken away.

             There was no official information about what happened to the man.

             At his weekly press conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez
             said he knew nothing of the incident, but added, ``If there is a public disturbance,
             measures will be taken to resolve that problem.''

             Meanwhile, dissidents and government officials disputed the question of political
             prisoners.

             Relatives of four jailed dissidents held a news conference elsewhere in the city to
             mark the anniversary of the human rights declaration and urged the release of about
             300 political prisoners held in Cuba.

             Gonzalez denied that the government held any political prisoners.

             ``Nobody is imprisoned or deprived of his freedom for having a different opinion,'' he
             said. Those imprisoned ``are counterrevolutionaries who have broken the law,'' the
             official said.

             One of the jailed dissidents' relatives, Magaly de Armas, said that Omar Rodriguez,
             an independent journalist invited to the press conference, had been arrested.

             At the press conference, Armas demanded the immediate release of Vladimiro
             Roca, her husband, along with Rene Gomez Manzano, Martha Beatriz Roque and
             Felix Bonne, leaders of the Domestic Dissidence Working Group.

             The four were jailed in July 1997 and accused of sedition for the publication of a
             manifesto titled The Homeland Belongs to All, heavily critical of Cuba's Communist
             Party and President Fidel Castro's government.

             They have yet to stand trial, although prosecutors have asked for six years
             imprisonment for Roca and five years for each of the other defendants.

             In Washington on Thursday, President Clinton mentioned the imprisoned members of
             the Domestic Dissidents Working Group in his speech marking the rights
             declaration's anniversary and stated that ``we make common cause with them all.''

             The president was critical of the situation ``in Cuba, where persons who strive for
             peaceful democratic change still are repressed and imprisoned.''

             Also on Thursday, the Archdiocese of Havana released a bulletin marking the
             anniversary of the human rights declaration. In it, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, archbishop
             of Havana, wrote that ``a man whose social rights are not assured is not treated with
             dignity as a person. Neither is a man whose personal rights to physical and moral
             integrity, to personal, civil and political freedom are not guaranteed.''
 

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