The human rights situation in Cuba continues to be grim under Raul Castro, according to a report by the island's main human rights group. The study by the Cuban Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) claimed that authorities keep taking a hard line against dissidents despite the change in leadership two years ago. The report mentioned that there has been a small drop in the number of political prisoners yet blamed the government for employing new tactics in order to intimidate any sign of dissent:
(CCHR head Elizardo) Sanchez said that instead of sentencing opponents to long prison terms, the government now employs "low intensity" repression, such as the 640 brief detentions of dissidents his group documented over the past six months.
In those cases, opponents are typically detained by police so they cannot attend scheduled meetings or protests, then released after a few hours with no charges filed.
The report also expressed worry that Castro's decision to commute the sentences of several prisoners on death row would create “false signals of change” on the island.
As Cuba’s human rights situation continues to deteriorate, dissident groups keep playing the waiting game with the Castro administration.
Image- BBC News (Members of Cuba’s “Women in White” are detained while protesting in April 2008)
Sources- Radio Netherlands Worldwide, MSNBC, Reuters, The Latin Americanist
Compared to what's going on next door at Guantanamo, Fidel and Raul look like saints. It's also pretty contradictory to claim that commuting death sentences is producing a "false" sense of change. Now who's being Orwellian?
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