Number of Cuban political prisoners drops, human rights group says

The number of political prisoners in Cuba has declined in the last six months, an independent human rights group said Monday, dpa reported.

In its semi-annual report, the illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said the number of political prisoners fell to 167 - from 201 at the end of 2009.

In June, the Cuban government freed paraplegic jailed dissident Ariel Sigler and transferred six others to prisons near their homes.

Sigler was among 75 dissidents who were arrested in the so-called Black Spring of 2003. They received prison sentences of up to 28 years on charges of being mercenaries in the pay of the United States.

The release of Sigler, 47, came after negotiations between the Catholic church and Cuban President Raul Castro.

Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos was to arrive in Cuba Monday night to support negotiations between the church and Cuban authorities on the future of the dissidents. He is to meet his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez and the Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega.

Moratinos will not meet opposition figures or Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas, who has been on hunger strike to win the release of political prisoners since February.

In an interview with the Granma newspaper published late Saturday, doctor Armando Caballero said that the 48-year-old dissident was in a life-threatening condition because of a blood clot that had formed in a vein in his neck.

Farinas has refused solid food since February in a bid to pressure the Cuban government to release 26 sick political prisoners who Havana says are US spies.

According to opposition activists on the Communist-ruled island, around 200 people are imprisoned because of their political views.