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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

35 very ill political prisoners in Cuba, says right group

35 very ill political prisoners in Cuba, says right group

From correspondents in Havana

January 27, 2008 09:03am

THERE are 35 political prisoners in Cuba in very poor health, and
authorities now have a novel way of taking dissidents out of circulation
for a short time, a leading human rights group said in a report.

Out of a total of 290 dissidents and prisoners of conscience in Cuba at
the close of 2007, 35 "are in a deplorable state of health inside
prisons," the National Coordinator of Current and Former Political
Prisoners (CNPP) said in the report issued in Havana.

Twenty-six of the ailing inmates are women, it added.

The rights group said there were "315 known prisons (in Cuba), including
56 maximum security facilities, 182 forced-labor camps, 46 minimum
security prisons, 18 juvenile detention centers and 13 prisons for women".

The report also mentioned "a new method to prevent opposition members
from reaching meeting places or diplomatic missions is taking them to a
police station for one or two days and then returning them ... back to
their home towns."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23116352-38199,00.html

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