United States (U.S.) peace activist, Cindy Sheehan (left), hugs Zohra Zewahi, mother of the Guantanamo detainee Omar Deghayes, during a news conference in Havana yesterday. Sheehan and other activists are in Cuba and plan to march to the gates of the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba, tomorrow, to demand the closure of the base. - Reuters

HAVANA (Reuters):

Respect for human rights has not improved in Cuba under interim leader Raul Castro, though the number of Cubans jailed for political reasons has fallen to 283, the country's main rights watchdog said yesterday.

Cuba remains the Western hemispheric nation with the most political prisoners in proportion to its population, the Cuban Commis-sion for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said in its year-end report.

The group, illegal but tolerated by Cuba's communist Govern-ment, expects the civil liberties situation, from freedom of association and information to the right to travel and self-employ-ment, to remain unchanged or deteriorate further because no reforms are in sight.

Violation of rights

"The provisional team designated by Commander-in-Chief, Fidel Castro, has done nothing to improve fundamental rights," said the commission, led by veteran rights activist Elizardo Sanchez. "Cuba's Government continues to violate each and every civil, political and economic right," it said.

Castro, 80, was forced to hand over the reins of government to this brother Raul, 75, after emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding in late July. He has not appeared in public since. Castro's one-party state has long faced international criticism for suppressing dissent and locking up critics.

Barring a 'political miracle', short-term prospects for human rights are negative and there is little internal pressure on the ruling bureaucracy to change its policies, the commission's report said.

"Due to the oppressive and repressive nature of the totalitarian regime and its enormous capability for social control, we cannot see any factors or components that are able to exert effective pressure on the government from inside Cuban society to begin a process of modernising reforms," it said.