In 2010, the opposition Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported there were 2,074 politically motivated arrests on the island.
Already in 2012, the Castro dictatorship has shattered that mark, with 2,393 political arrests and detentions of hours, days or longer, as of March 31, the commission said Tuesday.
Sparking a bulk of this year's arrests -- including 1,158 in March alone -- was Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the island. Commission head Elizardo Sanchez said more than half of the arrests happened before and during the pope's visit, during which he said nothing publicly about the human rights situation in Cuba.
Many of the arrests and detentions, according to Sanchez, were of beggars and homeless people taken off the streets so not to embarass the Castro regime. The level of repression matched that seen in 1961 after the Bay of Pigs invasion, he said.
1,158 arrests in March, one of the worst months of repression in the past 51 years.
2,393 arrests in the first three months of the year, more than in all of 2010 and more than half of those in 2011.
Each arrest, a reason why the pope was wrong to go to Cuba.
And each one an example of how under the Castro regime, despite all you hear about so-called "reforms," nothing has changed.
For the commission's latest reports, including the names of those arrested in March, read this.
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