Havana, CUBA February 2, 2009

The Cuban Commission of Human rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) made available to the public the most recent list of Cuban political prisoners corresponding to the last semester of 2008. Together with the prisoner’s list, the CCDHRN presented to the international media a press release where stated the sad realities

that shape the commonness of the Cuban society.

The provisional team of government designated by the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, (the one who put in hands of the General Raúl Castro Ruz, on July 31, 2006, the maximum responsibilities of the government, the state and the only governing party) has not done anything to improve the situation of the mentioned

fundamental rights.

The CCHRNR documented 205 political prisoners as of Jan. 30, down from 234 in early 2008. But twelve of the 205 have been freed on medical parole but continue to serve their sentences and can be returned to prison for parole violations. Also, some the prisoners freed already served their sentences.

“At the end of the second semester of 2008 we consider that the situation of civil, political, economic rights and certain cultural rights has continued being the same of the last decades, that is to say, a situation highly unfavorable for the Cuban people.”

"It is true that in 2008, as well as in the previous two years, the government has stopped applying long prison terms as it did in 2003, but Raul Castro's government has increased low-intensity political and social repression in the form of short-term arbitrary detentions. The Commission documented 1,500 cases."

About the Cuban Prisons Systems

We observe a tendency, in the last year, to concentrate large numbers of common prisoners in prisons of high security that are generally the biggest. This concentration has given place to a major accumulation and deterioration in the hygienic - sanitary conditions in these penal facilities.

It continues being very high the numbers of reported suicides and deaths for negligence’s or indolence of the military controls and for the criminal violence that tends to continue increasing in the mentioned high security prisons.

We have confirmed 54 prisoners' deaths during the year 2008 but we think that the deceased prisoners, under the conditions before mentioned exceeds the hundred, with the aggravating circumstance of which all these deaths took place under governmental custody.

All the prisoners of conscience and other political prisoners, as well as thousands of innocent persons imprisoned, are forced to coexist by common criminals of a dangerousness virtually not known in Cuba before the establishment of the current government more than half a century ago. The authorities continue using common violent criminals to terrorize the political prisoners. Until 1988 the government respected the necessary separation between commons prisoners and political prisoners, but this practice disappeared.

On January 28, 2009 the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, besides repeating the infamies of always against the Cuban dissident movement, announced that immediate after the publication the Cuban government will tender an invitation to visit our country to the Special Relater of the United Nations for cases of tortures, cruel, or inhuman treatments.

The government of Cuba will try to manipulate the visit of the above mentioned relater, Mr. Manfred Nowak, so that the illustrious visitor and his collaborators could not have time to meet privately with recent victims of abuses, in the prisons and in the streets of Cuba.

Without any doubt the Cuban government will compel the above mentioned Relater to the same limitations that turned into a great frustration the visit to Cuba of the Special Relater of the UN for the Nutrition, Mr. Jean Ziegler.

We are sure that the whole Cuban civil society will try to cooperate with the Special Relater for cases of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments against the Cuban citizens. From our side both the Commission and the Observatory of Prisons will begin to submitting reports to the office of Mr. Nowak starting next week.

The government of the island keeps intact the obstinate position that has characterized it during decades, respect of any exhortation or suggestion from the international community in favor of the introduction of improvements in the field of the civil, political, economic and cultural rights.

Our organization, as part of the human rights and pro-democracy movement within Cuba and having knowledge of the risk that represents the prevailing totalitarian ideas in the High governing Nomenclature, made an urgent call to the international community to continues the diplomatic and political pressure against the

Government of Cuba that force them to initiate a process of modern transformations that can guarantee real spaces of full civil, political, economic and cultural freedoms for all the Cubans.”