The human rights situation today in Cuba

The Associated Press has published a summary of a report detailing the current human rights situation in Cuba. For the first time since Raul Castro was elevated to head of the dictatorship, the number of political prisoners in the gulag has increased, to 208.

For a more in-depth examination, read the whole report, issued by the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation, in English and in Spanish.

The bottom line:

This Commission does not have the perception or can predict any positive changes, at least in the short-term, of the actual pitiable condition of the civil, human, political and economic rights that prevails today in Cuba. During the last three years of political succession and bureaucratic changes no progress has gain in this field and it only corroborates and emphasizes essentially the character of immovability of the Cuban political regime.

In the report, the commission highlights the case of human rights activist and journalist Dr. Darsi Ferrer, who is in jail on trumped-up charges of dealing in the black market. That's nonsense, said commission heard Elizardo Sanchez.

"They want to take him out of commission," Sanchez said.

Read the whole report, including an up-to-date list of political prisoners, here.