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Human Rights Watch Accuses Cuba Of Rights Violations 83 days ago
(RTTNews) - Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights group, on Wednesday accused the present Cuban administration under Raul Castro of serious human rights violations in the communist country.
In a report released in Washington on Wednesday, HRW said that the human rights situation in Cuba has deteriorated further after Raul Castro took over the country's presidency from his ailing brother Fidel Castro three years ago.
"Raul Castro's government has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental freedoms," the report said, adding that the present Cuban government was depending upon a repressive law that criminalizes "any behavior that contradicts socialist norms" for clamping down on political dissidents.
The report said that the controversial law "captures the essence of the Cuban government's repressive mindset, which views anyone who acts out of step with the government as a potential threat and thus worthy of punishment."
According to HRW, the report was based on more than 60 interviews with Cuban human-rights defenders, journalists, former political prisoners, relatives of current prisoners, clergy members, members of unauthorized political groups.
The group said that the report was compiled over a period of nine months, with its researchers visiting the fourteen provinces of Cuba on tourist visas after the Cuban government rejected the right group's earlier requests for meeting with officials and conducting a formal fact-finding mission.
"Despite significant obstacles to research, Human Rights Watch documented more than 40 cases in which Cuba has imprisoned individuals for 'dangerousness' under Raul Castro because they tried to exercise their fundamental rights," the report said. "Rather than dismantle the repressive machinery, Raul Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active."
Fidel Castro had ceded power to his brother Raul in February 2008, following an emergency stomach surgery in July 2006, and has made very few public appearances since then. The communist nation has survived more than four decades of U.S. sanctions under the Castro brothers.
The HRW report on Wednesday came just a day ahead of a hearing by the House Foreign Affairs Committee to decide whether to lift the U.S. restrictions on travel to the communist island nation. Also, the U.S. administration under President Obama is currently making serious efforts to improve relations with Cuba.
As a part of his efforts to re-set ties with Cuba, Obama recently lifted some of the travel restrictions for Cuban Americans, allowing them to visit relatives in the U.S. and send money home. He, however, retained the 47-year old U.S. trade embargo on the communist nation, stating that it will not be lifted until the communist nation takes notable steps towards democracy, including the release of some 219 political dissidents currently jailed in Cuba.
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