Group: Fewer political prisoners in Cuba
By ANITA SNOW
Associated Press Writer
HAVANA --
The number of political prisoners in Cuba has dropped by more than 20
percent since Raul Castro took over from his ailing elder brother, but
widespread repression has continued, a leading independent human rights
group said Thursday.
"Still in force is a police state whose nature is reflected in almost
every aspect of national life," the Cuban Commission for Human Rights
and National Reconciliation said in a report.
Raul Castro, the 76-year-old defense minister, has led the country since
his 80-year-old brother Fidel temporarily stepped aside in July 2006
following intestinal surgery. Since then, Cuba has seen no major
political or economic changes.
The commission, whose reports are regularly used by international groups
such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, said 246 political
prisoners were being held as of June 30, compared with 283 at the
beginning of 2007 and 316 a year ago.
The commission operates independently of the government and without its
approval, but has been largely tolerated. Even during a government
crackdown on the opposition in March 2003, the commission continued to
operate, providing information to international news media and human
rights groups about the arrests and trials.
Its list of those remaining behind bars includes 13 people who have been
released on medical parole, including well-known government critic
Martha Beatriz Roque and economics writer Oscar Espinosa Chepe. The
commission says it continues to list them because they could be returned
to prison at any time for parole violations.
The commission said it remains "inexplicable" that political prisoners
continue to be held "in one of the countries with the least political
violence on the planet."
"Our vision for the future is pessimistic, at least in the short term,"
activists Elizardo Sanchez and Carlos Menendez wrote in a statement
accompanying the report. "The situation concerning civil, political,
economic and cultural rights will continue the same, or even worsen,
unless there is some kind of political miracle in Cuba."
The commission's list includes prisoners convicted of violent acts, such
as Salvadorans Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena and Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon,
sentenced to death for terrorism in the bombings of Havana hotels that
killed an Italian tourist.
Also named is Hector Eladio Real Suarez, a member of a Miami-based exile
group who in 1996 was sentenced to death for killing a Cuban official
when he and six other men tried to infiltrate the island.
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