By IANS
Havana : The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation has said that 11 months after Raul Castro took over as provisional president of Cuba the rights situation on the island remains "markedly unfavourable."
In its biannual report, the outlawed commission said that the human rights panorama on the island "remains the same as the last few decades" and that the outlook for the future is "rather pessimistic," Spanish news agency EFE reported Friday.
At the same time, the document pointed out that the number of people behind bars or facing trial for political offences has fallen from 283 to 246.
"It's indisputable that there continue to be systematic and institutionalized violations of each of the civil, political and even cultural rights enshrined in the (UN Universal) Declaration of Human Rights," the organisation said.
It stated that under the leadership of Raul Castro, who took over last July from his ailing elder brother Fidel Castro, "not one step has been taken to begin the modernisation of the system of laws, including the decriminalisation – without obstacles – of all the civil, political, economic and cultural rights."
It said that the Cuban prison system "remains outside all form of scrutiny by the International Red Cross or other humanitarian organizations" and that inmates suffer widespread abuse and endure "unsanitary, inhuman and degrading" conditions.
According to the dissident group, "the hostility" between Havana and Washington – including the 45-year-old U.S. economic embargo on the island – "continues to create a negative geopolitical scenario that has served only to worsen the situation."