Cuba holds fewer political prisoners, group says

Cuba holds fewer political prisoners, group says
By Anita Snow | The Associated Press
February 3, 2009

HAVANA - The number of political prisoners held in Cuba continues to
fall gradually, but brief detentions of activists have soared under
President Raul Castro's rule, with more than 1,500 documented last year,
the island's leading independent rights group said Monday.

The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation said it
documented 205 political prisoners as of Jan. 30, down from 234 in early
2008. Twelve of the 205 have been freed on medical parole but continue
to serve their sentences and can be returned to prison for parole
violations.

The number of political prisoners has dropped by a third since Castro
assumed power from his ailing elder brother Fidel in July 2006, when the
commission counted 316 prisoners.

"It is true that in 2008, as well as in the previous two years, the
government has stopped applying long prison terms as it did in 2003,"
commission head Elizardo Sanchez wrote in the twice-yearly report,
referring to a crackdown that put 75 critics behind bars.

But Sanchez said Raul Castro's government has increased "low-intensity
political and social repression in the form of hundreds of short-term
arbitrary detentions."

Castro said in December that he would be willing to send imprisoned
dissidents and their families to the United States in exchange for the
freedom of five Cubans serving long terms in U.S. prisons on espionage
charges.

Even if the United States agrees, Cuba is unlikely to free all of those
on the commission's list, which includes some people convicted of
violent acts, such as two sentenced to death for Havana hotel bombings
that killed an Italian tourist.

Amnesty International has identified only 66 of those on the
commission's list as prisoners of conscience, including 10 who have
since been paroled.

President Barack Obama has never discussed a possible prisoner exchange
and has said he will maintain a long-standing trade embargo against the
island until Cuba shows "significant steps toward democracy," starting
with freedom for political prisoners.

But Obama also has promised to lift all restrictions on family travel
and cash remittances to Cuba and has said he is willing to talk directly
with Raul Castro.

The commission led by Sanchez is funded by international rights
organizations and operates without government approval. The group is now
largely tolerated, but Sanchez spent eight years in prison for his human
rights work during the 1980s and early 1990s.

The commission gets its information from prisoners' relatives or inmates
themselves, and its reports are regularly used by international groups
such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-flacubaprisoners0203sbfeb03,0,5035102.story