RIGHTS-CUBA: Opposition Group Forecasts Rise in Social Tension

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Jan 8 2003 (IPS) - A report released Wednesday by a dissident human rights group in Cuba provided the names of 36 political prisoners arrested in 2002, all of whom remain behind bars.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), one of the illegal opposition groups that are tolerated to some extent in this socialist island nation, predicted an even greater deterioration this year in Cuba’s human rights record due to ”a foreseeable increase in social tensions fuelled by growing economic difficulties.”

In a report distributed to foreign correspondents accredited in Havana, the CCDHRN said that of the 36 activists arrested last year, 23 were being held ”without formal charges.”

One of them was activist Oscar Elías Biscet, according to the latest version of the report that the CCDHRN produces every six months based on information from non-governmental sources, such as data provided by the families of prisoners of conscience.

Biscet, the head of the Lawton Human Rights Foundation, another dissident group, was taken into custody on Dec 6, around six weeks after completing a three-year sentence for ”dishonouring patriotic symbols” and ”instigating public disorder.”

Biscet is considered a prisoner of conscience by the London- based rights watchdog Amnesty International.

The CCDHRN listed a total of 223 people serving sentences or awaiting trial behind bars in the second half of 2002, as well as 25 other cases on which no recent information is available. The total of 223 is similar to that of the previous six-month period, when 230 people were in custody for ”political or socio-political reasons.”

”The number of people in prison for so-called crimes against the state has remained fairly steady despite the numerous calls to the Cuban government urging it to release all political prisoners,” stated the CCDHRN.

Of that total, 105 are serving sentences on charges of ”piracy”, involving the hijacking of boats for the purpose of illegal emigration, and ”illegal departure from the country” or defection. Cuba’s penal legislation provides for sentences of up to 30 years for aggravated cases of hijacking or people trafficking.

The rights group’s six-monthly lists include details such as date of arrest, charges, and sentences for each person, and constitute the only available source of such information in Cuba. Local authorities do not publish statistics on the prison population.

”Taking into account the foreseeable rise in social tensions fuelled by growing economic difficulties…we predict an even greater deterioration in the situation of basic human rights in Cuba in 2003,” warned the report.

It also stated that Cuba remains ”one of the few closed societies on the planet,” which does not accept observer or humanitarian missions by the International Red Cross, Amnesty International, and other leading international human rights or humanitarian organisations.

The government of Fidel Castro flatly rejects criticism of its human rights record, and argues that on the contrary, this Caribbean island nation of 11.2 million is one of the countries in the world with the greatest respect for social, economic and cultural rights.

The CCDHRN, whose 1987 request to the Justice Ministry for recognition as a legal non-governmental organisation has not been granted, is viewed by authorities here as just another group working in favour of U.S. interests.

The organisation received the Inter-American Press Association’s press freedom award in 1990, and was awarded the International Prize of the New York-based Human Rights Watch in 1991.

The communique that accompanied the report Wednesday was signed by CCDHRN president Elizardo Sánchez, who told IPS in late December that overall, suppression of political dissent was of ”low intensity” throughout 2002.

In his view, there has been ”no dramatic increase in the number of political prisoners” because the government has realised that opposition sectors ”do not constitute a threat that would justify intense repression.”

”Although a repressive atmosphere has certainly remained in place this year (2002), it has been of low intensity, and the numbers exist to prove that,” he said.

The activist also acknowledged that in the past two years, the government has tolerated opposition activities as long as they are held indoors. It has done so ”unwillingly, but it has accepted them…That is a step forward, because five or six years ago it was very difficult to carry out any kind of activity,” he added.

That tolerance does not, however, ”change the fact that Cuba continues to present one of the worst situations in terms of civil, political and economic rights in the western hemisphere,” he maintained.

In his statements to IPS, Sánchez admitted that while the death penalty has not been struck from the penal code, it has not been applied since April 2000, which he described as a positive development.

The CCDHRN report also includes the names of three prisoners who are on death row, including Salvadoran nationals Raul Ernesto Cruz and Otto René Rodríguez, who were found guilty of terrorism four years ago, and Humberto Real, who was arrested in October 1994 and convicted of crimes against state security and homicide.