Cuba Puts Dissident Punk Rocker on Trial

Cuba is to charge a punk rocker today with "social dangerousness" because his songs denounce and deride the communist government.

Gorki Aguila, lead singer of Porno para Ricardo, faces up to four years in prison for openly defying the revolution and scorning Fidel and Raul Castro as "geriatrics".

The 39-year-old has been in police custody since Monday and was due to appear at the Playa municipal court in western Havana to be charged with subverting "communist morality".

The case has triggered protests from artists and human rights groups. Supporters were due yesterday to assemble at Havana's Malecón promenade to protest. "We invite everyone to gather and shout Gorki," said the band's website.

Police arrested Aguila at his home where he was completing a new album provisionally called Geriatric Central Committee, a reference to the aging leadership.

Formed 10 years ago as part of an underground music movement, Porno para Ricardo is banned from official airwaves.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an illegal but tolerated group, said the singer had infuriated the authorities with some of his latest lyrics but had not violated the law. "Gorki Aguila has not committed any specific crime as defined by the current criminal code," it said in a statement.

Aguila had asked for "diplomatic observers" to attend the trial but has refused legal help from the US-based Cuban American National Foundation.