15 Cuban dissidents living in exile in various countries were brought to Rome by an Italian human-rights organization to remind the Pope to keep Cuba's human-rights abuses on his agenda when he meets President Fidel Castro later this week.

They issued a statement appealing to the Pope to ask Fidel Castro to release political prisoners and to respect human rights. The statement asked the Italian parliament to protest against what it called farcical elections held recently in Cuba, and called on Italian political parties to continue to press for multi-party democracy in Cuba.

The Cuban dissidents also asked Italian trade unionists to protest at the lack of free trade unions and the right to strike in Cuba. Among the signatories is a Franciscan monk, Miguel Loredo, who spent ten years in Castro's prisons, and Mario Chanes de Armas and Ricardo Bofill, two former comrades of Fidel Castro who fell out with the leader of the Revolution and spent even longer terms in jail.

The Franciscan monk told Italian reporters that Castro is struggling to maintain his image while the Cuban people remain ignorant of the rights which are denied to them by the Castro regime. Gianni Pilo, an Italian member of parliament who works for one of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's media companies, is the founder of the human-rights group promoting this protest. He pointed out that although several thousand journalists will be reporting the Pope's visit from Cuba, none of the dissidents will be there to express their views.