Amnesty Int. Issues Its Cuba Report

HAVANA TIMES — Amnesty International issued a report in London on Wednesday claiming that hundreds of dissidents and democracy activists in Cuba “suffered harassment, intimidation and arbitrary arrests” in 2011.

According to Amnesty, the Cuban government continued its “repression” on freedom of expression, association and assembly with hundreds of arrests and brief detentions, although it freed the last 11 prisoners of conscience who had been held since 2003, as well as another 62 “political prisoners,” some of whom had been in jail since the 1990s.

The NGO human rights defender, which hasn’t been allowed to enter the country since 1990, also expressed its opposition to the US embargo and highlighted the negative impact the measure has on the health of the Cuban population, especially marginalized groups.