A report from human rights group Amnesty International has accused Cuba
of instituting "a climate of fear that stifles and criminalises dissent"
against the island's communist government.
According to the report, which was released on Wednesday, Cuban laws are
so vague and arbitrary that any act of dissent can be deemed criminal.
The Cuban government has not issued an official response to the report,
but it routinely dismisses international human rights groups as tools of
the United States.
Amnesty has said it gathered information from independent sources on and
off the island, but conducted no first-hand research because it has been
banned from Cuba since 1990.
The report said that although Cuba signed the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights in February 2008, there has been no
improvement in rights for Cuban citizens.
It noted also that independent Cuban journalists continue to face a wide
range of restrictions and repression while attempting to report in
defiance of state controls on all media.
"There is certainly a wave, we would call it, of harassment and
arbitrary detention of independent journalists at the moment,'' Kerrie
Howard, Amnesty International's deputy director for the Americas, told
the Associated Press in the Spanish capital Madrid where the report was
released.
According to Amnesty, the Cuban government has launched crackdowns on
individual liberties in the name of national security and in response to
Washington's 48-year-old trade sanctions against the country.
'Lame excuse'
Guillermo Farinas, another activist, went on a hunger strike following
Tamayo's death [EPA]
"No matter how detrimental its impact, the US embargo is a lame excuse
for violating the rights of citizens, as it can in no way diminish the
obligation on the Cuban government to protect, respect and fulfil the
human rights of all Cubans,'' the report said.
Cuba's human rights situation has been in the spotlight since the death
of dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo in February after a long hunger
strike behind bars.
Tamayo had been designated as a "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty.
Guillermo Farinas, another opposition activist, has refused to eat or
drink since then, although he has received fluids and nutrients
intravenously at a hospital near his home in central Cuba.
The Cuban government insists that it holds no political prisoners and
safeguards human rights by providing citizens with free education and
health care, as well as heavily subsidised housing, utilities,
transportation and food.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/07/20107115356486469.html
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