Cuba frees dissidents arrested at Paya funeral

Cuban authorities have released without charges most the dissidents arrested after the funeral of political activist Oswaldo Payo, activists said. "I was arrested for about nine hours at the Tarara police school (in eastern Havana) with about 20 other dissidents. Then, they took me home by car," rights activist Guillermo Farinas told AFP. Farinas, the 2010 winner of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize, was among dozens of dissidents arrested Tuesday after the emerged from Paya's funeral shouting anti-government slogans. Most of the other arrested dissidents also were freed under similar conditions, according to the banned but tolerated Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN). Speaking to AFP from his home in the central city of Santa Clara, Farinas said he was released "without charge," as were the other dissidents arrested with him in Tarara. During his arrest, Farinas said he was struck in the face and forced onto a bus that took him and others to the police barracks. "I asked (police interrogators) what law prevented me from walking in Cuba next to a hearse but they could not answer," he said. CCDHRN president Elizardo Sanchez said "most" of those arrested were freed late Tuesday. Authorities say Paya, 60, died on Sunday along with another dissident, Harold Cepero Escalante, when their rental car went off the road and struck a tree in southeastern Cuba. But Paya's daughter, 23-year-old Rosa Maria Paya, sharply questioned that account in an impassioned statement delivered at the funeral before an audience that included leaders of Cuba's Roman Catholic church. Rosa Maria said her skepticism of the official version was based on "the repeated threats against the life of my father and our family."