No End To Repression After Castro, Activist Says
HAVANA (Reuters) - International human rights groups hope Fidel Castro’s retirement will lead to the release of political prisoners, but a skeptical local activist said he sees no end to repression of dissent.
“The gulag is intact and continues to swallow up Cubans. Few are being freed,” veteran rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said on Wednesday.
His illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission for Human Rights estimates there are 230 people in prison in Cuba for expressing their political views, serving sentences of up to 28 years.
Amnesty International has adopted 58 of them as what it calls prisoners of conscience, who it says are imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of beliefs. It urged Cuba’s communist government on Tuesday to seize the opportunity provided by Castro’s departure to guarantee basic human rights.
Reform must start with the release of all prisoners of conscience, the judicial review of all sentences passed after unfair trials and the abolition of the death penalty, the organization said.
