For the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Cuban jails; for respect for the exercise, promotion and defense of human rights anywhere in the world; for the honor and courage of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, unjustly incarcerated and brutally tortured in Castro's prisons, who died while on a hunger strike denouncing these crimes and the lack of rights and democracy in his country; for respect for the life of those who risk death such as Zapata Tamayo to prevent Fidel...

The women - wives and mothers of jailed dissidents - are staging a week of protests on the anniversary of Fidel Castro's 2003 Black Spring crackdown. They are demanding the release of some 50 government critics still being held. On Wednesday, police briefly arrested some of the women, known as the "Damas de Blanco" because they dress in white. Those marching on Thursday, the fourth day of protests, included the mother of Orlando Zapata, who died last month after an 85-day prison...

Amnesty International urged Cuban President Raúl Castro to ensure the safety of a group of female relatives of prisoners of conscience ahead of a scheduled demonstration on Thursday. The call came after a protest by the Damas de Blanco (ladies in white) on Wednesday was forcibly broken up by Cuban police, who briefly detained several women. After the incident, some of the women said they had been beaten by the police. They include Reyna Tamayo, mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who...

Amnesty International on Wednesday called on the Cuban authorities to revoke laws that restrict freedom of expression, assembly and association and to release all dissidents unfairly detained by the authorities. The organization also urged President Raúl Castro to allow independent monitoring of the human rights situation in Cuba by inviting UN experts to visit the country and by facilitating monitoring by other human rights groups. The call came ahead of the 7th anniversary of...

The US government criticized on Thursday in its annual report on human rights the restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly and association, among others, in Venezuela, Cuba, and to some extent in Colombia. With regard to Venezuela, the US report said that the "politicization of the judiciary and official harassment and intimidation of the political opposition and the media intensified during 2009." The US State Department, which delivered the document to the US...

For almost a week, I have been haunted by Cuban political prisoner Ariel Sigler Amaya's description of what the Castro dictatorship is doing to him as he sits in a Havana hospital suffering from a litany of health problems. "This is obvious," said Sigler, "they are killing me little by little." And nobody, except the relative few of us who follow and care about the plights of Sigler and other Cuban political prisoners, gives a damn. The MSM is not tracking the steep...

Amnesty International has urged Cuban President Raúl Castro to immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience after a political activist died following a hunger strike. Orlando Zapata Tamayo was reported to have been on hunger strike in protest at prison conditions for several weeks before his death in Havana on Monday. "The tragic death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo is a terrible illustration of the despair facing prisoners of conscience who see no hope of...

Amnesty International has adopted its 55th prisoner of conscience in Cuba and urged President Raúl Castro to release him immediately and unconditionally. Darsi Ferrer, Director of the ‘Juan Bruno Zayas’ Health and Human Rights Centre in Havana, has been detained since July 2009 on spurious charges of receiving illegally obtained goods, an offence usually immediately bailed. He has not been brought to trial and he’s being held in a maximum security prison in...

Washington, DC - The Cuban government should immediately cease its harassment of the blind human rights defender Juan Carlos González Leiva, a leader of the Council of Human Rights Rapporteurs, and his family, Human Rights Watch said today. In recent weeks, Cuban authorities have repeatedly threatened to force González Leiva and his wife and fellow rights defender Tania Maceda Guerra to leave Havana and move elsewhere on the island. The authorities have pressed for the move...

Washington, DC - Raúl Castro's government has locked up scores of people for exercising their fundamental freedoms and allowed scores more political prisoners arrested during Fidel Castro's rule to languish in detention, Human Rights Watch . Rather than dismantle Cuba's repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active, the report says. The 123-page report, "," shows how the Raúl Castro government has relied in particular on the...