Cuban Rights Group Reports 610 Politically Motivated Detentions Latin American Herald Tribune April 2, 2015
HAVANA – The Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission, or CCDHRN, said Thursday that Cuba’s government detained 610 people for political reasons in March, the highest number in the past seven months.
“There is a noticeable trend toward increasing repressive activities of this kind,” the CCDHRN said in its monthly report. “At the same time, we also identify 95 cases of people who suffered other forms of political repression including physical attacks, police harassment and vandalism and hostile demonstrations.”
“The exercise of all civil and political rights is still a crime,” the group said, noting that the Cuban penal code still includes an offense called “pre-criminal social dangerousness,” which is punishable by up to four years in prison.
The country is unlikely to see an improvement in respect for fundamental, civil and political rights “as a result of the government’s inflexible posture and its opposition to any effort or proposal leading to the urgent judicial, economic and political reforms that the Cuban people need and deserve,” the commission said.
Outlawed yet tolerated, CCDHRN is the only organization in Cuba that reports on political repression.
The Cuban dismisses most dissidents as “counter-revolutionaries” and “mercenaries.”
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