AI Calls on Cuba to Release Dissident

HAVANA TIMES — Amnesty International called on the Cuban government this past Friday to explain why the dissident Jorge Vazquez Chaviano was not released on Monday as scheduled, reported Europa Press.

The member of the Central Opposition Coalition, who has already completed his 18 month sentence for “unlawful economic activities,” Vazquez Chaviano has been on a hunger strike since this past Monday along with more than a dozen other dissidents on the island.

In a communiqué, Amnesty spokesman Gerardo Ducos expressed the organization’s criticism that the judicial system in Cuba as “arbitrary” and “unfair” to those who disagree with the government, while calling the extension of prison stay “unusual” and therefore “troublesome.”