Cuba on Thursday marked Human Rights Day by detaining dozens of opposition activists or barring them from leaving their homes to prevent protests against the communist authorities, rights groups said.
In Havana, at least a dozen activists were arrested when attempting to attend a gathering arranged by the Ladies in White dissident movement, reporters said.
There were similar scenes elsewhere on the island — as is usually the case in Cuba on international rights day, when authorities stamp down on dissent.
The arrests are usually brief.
At least 11 people were arrested in Guantanamo, on the eastern tip of Cuba, and six more in the capital when they attempted to meet up, rights body Patriotic Union of Cuba leader Jose Daniel Ferrer said.
In Camaguey in central Cuba, another 23 activists were intercepted by authorities, he said.
It came as Cuban Attorney General Dario Delgado asserted that Cuba has no political prisoners, only jailed common criminals who “call themselves dissidents.”
“It is sometimes said there are political prisoners here. There aren’t,” Delgado told the official Cuban Communist Party daily Granma.
“The majority of those who call themselves dissidents are common inmates who have been attracted by counterrevolutionary organizations, internal or external, and receive payments directly or indirectly, but they aren’t prisoners of conscience,” he said.
Among foreigners imprisoned on the island, Delgado said some were common criminals and a “very few” were “terrorists or someone who came to Cuba to subvert the political order.”
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