Rights group criticizes Cuba in prisoner's death

Rights group criticizes Cuba in prisoner's death
Reuters
By Jeff Franks Jeff Franks – Wed Feb 24, 2:52 pm ET

HAVANA (Reuters) – Amnesty International called the hunger strike death
of jailed Cuban activist Orlando Zapata Tamayo a "terrible indictment"
of repression on the island and urged Cuban President Raul Castro on
Wednesday to release all political prisoners.

The London-based human rights group said "a full investigation must be
carried out to establish whether ill-treatment may have played a part"
in Zapata's death on Tuesday after 85 days without food.

It said Cuba must be investigated "to verify its respect for human rights."

In the Cuban government's first comment on the case, state-run website
www.cubadebate.cu said President Raul Castro expressed regret about
Zapata's death that he was neither tortured nor executed and suggested
the United States was to blame.

Paraphrasing Castro, the article reported Castro said the death "was the
result of a relation with the United States."

"Torture does not exist, there was no torture, there was no execution.
That happens at the Guantanamo base," the website quoted Castro as
saying at an event on Wednesday in the port of Mariel with visiting
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Castro referred to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where
the United States houses foreign terrorism suspects and has admitted
using techniques that are widely considered to be torture while
interrogating them.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement it was "deeply saddened"
by the death and called on Cuba to free its political prisoners.

Zapata, jailed since 2003 and serving a 36-year sentence for crimes
including "disrespect, public disorder and resistance," launched the
hunger strike to protest prison conditions, the independent Cuban Human
Rights Commission said.

Commission spokesman Elizardo Sanchez faulted Cuban authorities for not
doing enough to save Zapata, a 42-year-old plumber from the eastern
state of Holguin and disputed Castro's comments about there being no
torture in Cuban prisons.

"The real history of Cuba in recent decades belies what General Castro
said," he said. "We reaffirm our conviction that Orlando Zapata was the
victim of a horrendous crime."

Amnesty International said Zapata's act reflected the desperation of
political prisoners in Cuba, who are said by the Cuban Human Rights
Commission to number about 200.

U.S. CRITICISM

Zapata was one of 55 jailed Cubans labeled "prisoners of conscience" by
Amnesty International.

"Faced with a prolonged prison sentence, the fact that Orlando Zapata
Tamayo felt he had no other avenue available to him but to starve
himself in protest is a terrible indictment of the continuing repression
of political dissidents in Cuba," it said.

The case "also underlines the urgent need for Cuba to invite
international human rights experts to visit the country to verify
respect for human rights, in particular obligations in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," the group said.

Cuban authorities consider political prisoners to be "mercenaries"
working for the United States to undermine the Cuban government

Zapata's death drew sharp responses from several members of the U.S.
Congress on Tuesday, including Republican Representative Lincoln
Diaz-Balart of Florida.

"His murder by the tyrant Fidel Castro and his cowardly jailers will
never be forgotten," said Diaz-Balart, a nephew of the first wife of
Fidel Castro and one of the former Cuban leader's most ardent opponents
in Washington.

In its statement, the U.S. State Department said Zapata's death
"highlights the injustice of Cuba's holding more than 200 political
prisoners who should now be released without delay."

(Additional reporting by Esteban Israel; editing by Jane Sutton and
Cynthia Osterman)

Rights group criticizes Cuba in prisoner's death - Yahoo! News (24
February 2010)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100224/wl_nm/us_cuba_prisoner_death_1