Cuban dissident dies after beating

A Cuban dissident who was beaten by authorities died at the weekend just three days after being arrested and roughed up by police, dissidents said. Juan Wilfredo Soto, 46, died on Sunday in the central city of Santa Clara, three days after the arrest and beating incident, said Elizardo Sanchez, who leads the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Committee. The Americas' only one-party Communist government did not immediately comment on the death. Doctors said Soto died of pancreatitis. Dissident Guillermo Farinas, who lives in Santa Clara, told AFP by phone from a local funeral parlor that Soto died after he was taken to the hospital following his arrest in a park and subsequent beating. "There is not the slightest doubt that there was a cause and effect, and that Soto's death was related to the beating he was given," after refusing to leave the city's central park, Farinas said. Farinas charged that Soto had become the first mortal victim of President Raul Castro's policy stated in April that dissidents were not welcome in Cuba's streets. "If we do not do something, so that the government changes its stand toward peaceful protestors, we are going to be reporting even more deaths," he said. Soto's death comes 15 months after the February 2010 death of dissident demonstrator Orlando Zapata, who died on a hunger strike protesting prison conditions, drawing an international outcry.