MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Human rights groups in Cuba say number of political prisoners has dropped

Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas on hunger strike faces a life-threatening condition

The number of political prisoners in Cuba has declined in the last six months, an independent human rights group said Monday.

In its semi-annual report, the illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said the number of political prisoners fell to 167 - from 201 at the end of 2009.

In June, the Cuban government freed paraplegic jailed dissident Ariel Sigler and transferred six others to prisons near their homes.

Sigler was among 75 dissidents who were arrested in the so-called Black Spring of 2003. They received prison sentences of up to 28 years on charges of being mercenaries in the pay of the United States.

The release of Sigler, 47, came after negotiations between the Catholic Church and Cuban President Raul Castro.

Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos was to arrive in Cuba Monday night to support negotiations between the church and Cuban authorities on the future of the dissidents. He is to meet his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez and the Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega.

Moratinos will not meet opposition figures or Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas, who has been on hunger strike to win the release of political prisoners since February.

In an interview with the Granma newspaper published late Saturday, Doctor Armando Caballero said that the 48-year-old dissident was in a life-threatening condition because of a blood clot that had formed in a vein in his neck.

Fariñas has refused solid food since February in a bid to pressure the Cuban government to release 26 sick political prisoners who Havana says are US spies.

Fariñas has reiterated that if anything happens to his life, the only people to blame are the Castro brothers (Raul, currently president and Fidel the revolution’s ailing leader).
According to opposition activists in Cuba around 200 people are imprisoned because of their political views.