http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/02/world/americas/cuba-again-arrests-artist-seeking-dissidents-release.html 2015-01-02 03:16:51 Cuba Again Arrests Artist Seeking Dissidents’ Release Tania Bruguera, who advocates free speech in her native country, was arrested for the third time in two days. === MEXICO CITY — A performance artist advocating free speech in The artist, It was Cuba’s biggest move against the opposition in the two weeks since the United States and Cuba announced they would renew diplomatic relations. Human rights monitors said that up to 50 government opponents were arrested around the time that Most of the activists were eventually released. But the independent news site Ms. Bruguera, after a second arrest and release on Wednesday, went to a municipal jail on Thursday along with several dissidents, pressing for the release of the other detainees. It was unclear why she and the others were taken into custody, and the government made no statement. Ms. Bruguera had said her performance would test the climate for change in Cuba under the diplomatic thaw with the United States, which announced softened restrictions on trade and travel but promised to keep pressure on Cuba to improve human rights. The State Department condemned the arrests of several dissidents on Tuesday but has not commented on Ms. Bruguera. The Cuban authorities called her plan a political provocation. Although it denied her a permit for her performance, it had sought to negotiate for an alternative site, but Ms. Bruguera said the sides could not agree. Ted Henken, a professor at Baruch College who has written on social movements in Cuba, said Ms. Bruguera had not been known as a major dissident figure, but her art often reflected perceived political injustices in Cuba and elsewhere. The daughter of a Cuban diplomat, she has explored in her work what she considers the promise and the failings of the revolution. “It’s a good thing,” Mr. Henken said, “that the welcome news two weeks ago of the diplomatic breakthrough between the U.S. and Cuban governments is accompanied now with a vivid reminder that the Cuban government still needs to open up to the Cuban people and begin dismantling the often overlooked internal embargo it holds on the exercise of fundamental freedoms of the Cuban people.”