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France demands Cuba release
political prisoner
Caribbean
Net News, Wednesday,
October 12, 2005.
PARIS, France (AFP): France's foreign minister
told his Cuban counterpart during a meeting
here on Tuesday that Cuba must release its
political prisoners.
"The meeting was exclusively about
the human rights situation in Cuba,"
said a French foreign ministry statement.
"The minister (Philippe Douste-Blazy)
reiterated our position and demanded the
release of political prisoners in Cuba,"
it said.
There are 336 political prisoners in Cuba,
according to the Cuban Commission of Human
Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN),
which is banned by Havana's communist regime.
The Cuban foreign minister, Felipe Perez
Roque, for his part "repeated his government's
traditional position on this point,"
the statement said, adding that the two
ministers "noted their disagreement."
The European Union sanctioned Cuba in 2003
after the regime arrested 75 dissidents
in a crackdown in May of that year, but
Brussels temporarily suspended the penalties
this year and re-established political dialogue
with Havana.
The CCDHRN says 30 dissidents have been
arrested in Cuba since July in what it calls
"a new wave of repression."
Cuba has defied over 40 years of US sanctions
aimed at ousting President Fidel Castro,
who runs the one-party state by controlling
most aspects of Cuban life through the communist
party.
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