7-Mar-2000 -- EWTN News Brief
HAVANA (CWNews.com) - A Cuban human rights groups said on Friday that the country's Communist government had increased its crackdown on dissidents in recent months, with nearly 600 people jailed as political prisoners in the past four months.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said the repression is the worst in a decade. "We regret to report that the situation for civil and political rights continues to be very unfavorable in our country, and we consider that there are few reasons to expect
significant improvements," the group said in a statement. The penalties range from imprisonment to orders to stay at home beginning around the time of the Ibero-American Summit of heads of state of Latin America, Spain, and Portugal last November.
The rights commission said that in the past four months, 352 dissidents had been arrested and 240 had their freedom of movement restricted, normally by being ordered to stay at home. Of the 352 arrested, 21 "peaceful opposition activists" remained in detention on Friday, with four of
them having been tried and convicted, the commission said.
"In our opinion, the four dissidents condemned up to now are completely innocent in respect to the supposed crimes. They simply exercised or tried to exercise elemental civil and political rights in an absolutely peaceful manner," it said.
One of those four was Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, 38, who was handed a three-year jail sentence last Friday for protests including turning the Cuban flag upside-down and carrying pro-life placards. |