Eleven months after Cuban leader Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother, Cuba continues to trample on civil liberties, though the number of political prisoners has fallen, a rights group said on Thursday.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said the number of Cubans in jail for political reasons dropped from 283 to 246 in the first half of the year. But the rights situation has not improved under acting President Raul Castro, who took over the government on July 31 after his 80-year-old brother underwent bowel surgery, the commission said in a biannual report.
"The systematic and institutional violation of each and every civil, political and economic right listed in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights persists," it said. Freedom of expression and association, and the right to form labour unions or political organisations, remain suppressed and criminalised under a draconian penal code, the group said.
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