HAVANA, May 9 (Reuters) -- Cuban authorities have jailed three dissident
                  journalists found guilty of "disrespect" towards officials including President
                  Fidel Castro, one of the island's independent news agencies reported on
                  Saturday.

                  The dissident agency Cuba Press said Manuel Castellanos, 41, Leonardo
                  Gonzalez, 24, and Roberto Rodriguez, 27, were convicted on Thursday at a
                  court in the eastern province of Holguin.

                  Castellanos, a Cuba Press reporter, received a sentence of two years and
                  seven months' imprisonment for showing "disrespect" towards Castro and the
                  Cuban police, it said.

                  Gonzalez, who works for another dissident news agency Santiago Press, was
                  given one year and four months in jail, while Rodriguez received one year and
                  five months. Cuba Press did not say where Rodriguez worked.

                  The agency added that various relatives of the defendants were rounded up
                  and temporarily detained during the trial, presumably to prevent disturbances.
                  They were later freed.

                  The Cuba Press report, issued via the Internet, could not be immediately
                  confirmed with relatives or Cuban officials.

                  Cuba Press is the largest of various, self-styled "independent" news agencies
                  on the communist-run Caribbean island, which employ around 40 reporters and
                  work without official authorisation outside the state-controlled media.

                  The reporters, who include disillusioned former state journalists and opposition
                  activists, send their work abroad for publication, mainly via the Internet.

                  The Castro government labels the independent journalists as "mercenaries"
                  and "counter-revolutionaries" in the pay of its foes in the United States and
                  often in search of a ticket out of Cuba as political refugees.

                  Havana also rejects the word "dissident," saying there is no repression of free
                  speech in Cuba, only legitimate punishment of "counter-revolutionary
                  criminals."

                  Prior to Thursday's reported convictions, several other independent journalists
                  were also being held in Cuban jails. Press rights groups around the world have
                  appealed unsuccessfully on their behalf to Castro.

                  One of those groups, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists,
                  last week included Castro on its list of those it deems "The Top 10 Enemies of
                  the Press." Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic headed that list.

                     Copyright 1999 Reuters.