Cuba is a totalitarian state controlled by President Fidel Castro, who is Chief of State, Head of Government, First Secretary of the Communist Party, and commander in chief of the armed forces. President Castro exercises control over all aspects of Cuban life through the Communist Party and its affiliated mass organizations, the government bureaucracy, and the state security apparatus. The Communist Party is the only legal political entity, and President Castro personally chooses the membership of the Politburo, the select group that heads the party. There are no contested elections for the 601-member National Assembly of People's Power (ANPP), which meets twice a year for a few days to rubber stamp decisions and policies already decided by the Government. The Party controls all government positions, including judicial offices. The judiciary is completely subordinate to the Government and to the Communist Party.

The Ministry of Interior is the principal organ of state security and totalitarian control. Officers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), which are led by President Castro's brother Raul, have been assigned to the majority of key positions in the Ministry of Interior in recent years. In addition to the routine law enforcement functions of regulating migration and controlling the Border Guard and the regular police forces, the Interior Ministry's Department of State Security investigates and actively suppresses opposition and dissent. It maintains a pervasive system of vigilance through undercover agents, informers, the rapid response brigades, and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR's). While the Government traditionally used the CDR's to mobilize citizens against dissenters, impose ideological conformity, and root out "counterrevolutionary" behavior, economic problems have reduced the Government's ability to reward participation in the CDR's and hence the willingness of citizens to participate in them, thereby lessening the CDR's effectiveness. Other mass organizations also inject government and Communist Party control into citizens' daily activities at home, work, and school. Members of the security forces committed serious human rights abuses.

The Government continued to control all significant means of production and remained the predominant employer, despite permitting some carefully controlled foreign investment in joint ventures with the Government. In most cases, foreign employers are allowed to contract workers only through state agencies, which receive hard currency payments for the workers' labor but in turn pay the workers a small fraction of this, usually 5 percent, in local currency. In May 1998, the Government retracted some of the changes that had led to the rise of legal nongovernmental business activity when it further tightened restrictions on the self-employed sector by reducing the number of categories allowed and by exacting relatively high taxes on self-employed persons. In August the Government's official press reported that the number of self-employed persons was 166,000, an increase from the fewer than 150,000 reported in 1998, when the number of self-employed persons was estimated to have dropped by one-fourth from 1997. According to official figures published in December, the economy grew 6.2 percent during the year. Despite this growth, overall economic output remains below the levels prior to the drop of at least 35 percent in gross domestic product that occurred in the early 1990's due to the inefficiencies of the centrally controlled economic system; the loss of billions of dollars of annual Soviet bloc trade and Soviet subsidies; the ongoing deterioration of plants, equipment, and the transportation system; and the continued poor performance of the important sugar sector. The 1998-99 sugar harvest was marginally better than the 1997-98 harvest, considered to have been the worst in more than 50 years. For the ninth straight year, the Government continued its austerity measures known as the "special period in peacetime." Agricultural markets, legalized in 1994, provide consumers wider access to meat and produce, although at prices beyond the reach of most citizens living on peso-only incomes or pensions. Given these conditions, the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in remittances from the exile community significantly helps those who receive dollars to survive. Tourism remained a key source of revenue for the Government. The system of "tourist apartheid" continued, with foreign visitors who pay in hard currency receiving preference over citizens for food, consumer products, and medical services. Citizens remain barred from tourist hotels, beaches, and resorts.

The Government's human rights record remained poor. It continued systematically to violate fundamental civil and political rights of its citizens. Citizens do not have the right to change their government peacefully. Unlike in 1998, there were no credible reports of death due to excessive use of force by the police. However, members of the security forces and prison officials continued to beat and otherwise abuse detainees and prisoners. The Government failed to prosecute or sanction adequately members of the security forces and prison guards who committed abuses. Prison conditions remained harsh. The authorities routinely continued to harass, threaten, arbitrarily arrest, detain, imprison, and defame human rights advocates and members of independent professional associations, including journalists, economists, doctors, and lawyers, often with the goal of coercing them into leaving the country. The Government used internal and external exile against such persons, and it offered political prisoners the choice of exile or continued imprisonment. The Government denied political dissidents and human rights advocates due process and subjected them to unfair trials. The Government infringed on citizens' privacy rights. The Government denied citizens the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association. It limited the distribution of foreign publications and news to selected party faithful and maintained strict censorship of news and information to the public. The Government restricts some religious activities but permits others. Before and after the January 1998 visit of Pope John Paul II, the Government permitted some public processions on feast days, and reinstated Christmas as an official holiday, but it has not responded to the papal appeal that the Church be allowed to play a greater role in Cuban society. During the year, the Government allowed about 15 new priests to enter the country; however, the applications of many priests and religious workers remained pending, and some visas were issued for periods of only 3 to 6 months. The Government kept tight restrictions on freedom of movement, including foreign travel. The Government was sharply and publicly antagonistic to all criticism of its human rights practices and sought to discourage and thwart foreign contacts with human rights activists. The Government publicly stated before the Ibero-American Summit in November that visiting delegations were free to meet with any person in the country, and about 20 dissidents met with 9 different delegations, including 3 heads of state. However, prior to the summit, the Government temporarily detained a number of human rights activists to prevent them from preparing for meetings with the visiting leaders and also detained independent journalists to prevent them from covering the event. Violence against women is a problem, as is child prostitution. Racial discrimination often occurs. The Government severely restricted worker rights, including the right to form independent unions. The Government employs forced labor, including that by children.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from:

a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

There were no reports of politically motivated killings. Unlike in 1998, during the year there were no credible reports of deaths due to the excessive use of force by the national police. Government sanctions against perpetrators were light or nonexistent in the cases of deaths due to excessive use of force during 1998. There were no reports of proper investigations into the 1998 deaths of Wilfredo Martinez Perez, Yuset Ochoterena and Reinery Marrera Toldedo.

In October 1996, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued its final report on the Government's July 13, 1994 sinking of the "13th of March" tugboat, which killed 41 persons, including women and children. The IACHR concluded that the Government violated the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man and found the Government legally obligated to indemnify the survivors and the relatives of the victims for the damages caused. At year's end, the Government still had not done so. The Government detained a number of human rights activists to prevent them from participating in a Mass in memory of the victims on the anniversary of the deaths (see Sections 1.d. and 2.c.).

In March the Government announced that a Havana court sentenced Salvadoran citizen Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon to death for terrorism. The authorities arrested Cruz Leon in September 1997 and charged him with being the "material author" of the killing of an Italian tourist that month with a bomb, one of a series of explosions in Havana. In April the court sentenced a second Salvadoran citizen, Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena, to death in the same case. Neither man was executed by year's end. The authorities also held two Guatemalan citizens in custody in the case; they awaited trial at year's end.

b. Disappearance

There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The Constitution prohibits abusive treatment of detainees and prisoners; however, there were instances in which members of the security forces beat and otherwise abused human rights advocates, detainees, and prisoners. There have been numerous reports of disproportionate police harassment of black youths (see Section 5).

On January 26, police approached 16-year-old Yusel Vidal Mejias and his friends, who were hanging on to a gasoline truck while riding their bicycles at about 11:00 p.m. The youths dispersed upon seeing the police, but police apprehended Vidal and severely beat him. Since Vidal had no identity documents, the police took him to the local police station, where the police told the registration official that he was a "ninja" (a popular expression referring to thieves who use acrobatic maneuvers to mount a moving truck and then proceed to throw bags of rice or beans onto another moving vehicle). Vidal's father, Jose Vidal Crossa, told of his son's arrest by friends and neighbors, reached the police station after midnight, and after nearly an hour's wait, secured his son's release. The father took the boy to the nearest hospital, where a doctor diagnosed him as having suffered "severe contusions of the right elbow, of the right knee, and multiple hematomas of the back." On January 27, the father met with the chief of police, who admitted that the police officer used excessive force and said that the officer would no longer have any duties related to street patrols. Citing a radio statement by the Director of Prisons of the Ministry of Interior (MININT) in 1996 that no prisoner in Cuba is mistreated, the father officially requested that the military prosecutor investigate the case and prosecute the police officer. There was no response from the Government as of year's end.

On August 14, police detained Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez, president of the Lawton Human Rights Foundation (FLDH), and other activists as they were going to a public park to demonstrate (see Section 2.b.). At the police station, a policeman punched Biscet in the face while another crushed his burning cigarette on Biscet's elbow when Biscet said, "God loves you." It was not known whether the Government ever sanctioned the two policemen responsible for the cigarette burn and for striking Dr. Biscet in the face.

The Government continued to subject those who disagreed with it to "acts of repudiation." At government instigation, members of state-controlled mass organizations, fellow workers, or neighbors of intended victims are obliged to stage public protests against those who dissent with the Government's policies, shouting obscenities and often causing damage to the homes and property of those targeted; physical attacks on the victims sometimes occur. Police and state security agents are often present but take no action to prevent or end the attacks. Those who refuse to participate in these actions face disciplinary action, including loss of employment. During the year, there were no massive acts of repudiation directed against the homes of particular human rights activists; however, there were smaller-scale acts of repudiation, known as "reuniones relampagos," or "lightning fast meetings."

On October 28, in a press conference at his residence, Dr. Biscet announced plans for a protest march. Participants in the press conference were subjected to verbal abuse from a crowd in which observers noted the presence of security police in civilian clothes (see Section 2.b.). On November 10, this publicly announced nonviolent protest march from Dolores Park to Butari Park in the Lawton section of Havana was repressed when a crowd booed, chased, and struck three protesters. On November 12, Moises Rodriguez Quesada allowed his house to be used for a meeting of nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) (see Section 2.b.). On November 22, a small crowd threw stones for about 30 minutes at a metal door on the side of Rodriguez's house. Independent journalists also were subjected to acts of repudiation (see Section 2.a.).

Prison conditions continued to be harsh, and conditions in detention facilities also are harsh. The Government claims that prisoners have rights, such as family visitation, adequate nutrition, pay for work, the right to request parole, and the right to petition the prison director. However, police and prison officials often denied these rights and used beatings, neglect, isolation, and denial of medical attention against detainees and prisoners, including those convicted of political crimes or those who persisted in expressing their views. Human Rights Watch reported that in February the Government revised the Penal Code to provide that prisoners "cannot be subjected to corporal punishment, nor is it permitted to employ any means against them to humiliate them or to lessen their dignity;" however, the revised code failed to establish penalties for committing such acts. There are separate prison facilities for women and for minors.

Prison officials regularly denied prisoners other rights, such as the right to correspondence, and continued to confiscate medications and food brought by family members for political prisoners. State security officials in Havana's Villa Marista prison took medications brought by family members for inmates and then refused to give the detainees the medicine, despite repeated assurances that they would. Prison authorities also routinely denied religious workers access to detainees and prisoners.

The rights to adequate nutrition and medical attention while in prison also were violated regularly. In 1997 the IACHR described the nutritional and hygienic situation in the prisons, together with the deficiencies in medical care, as "alarming." Both the IACHR and the former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Cuba, as well as other human rights monitoring organizations, reported the widespread incidence in prisons of tuberculosis, scabies, hepatitis, parasitic infections, and malnutrition.

Prison guards and state security officials also subjected human rights and prodemocracy activists to threats of physical violence; to systematic psychological intimidation; and to detention or imprisonment in cells with common and violent criminals, sexually aggressive inmates, or state security agents posing as prisoners. In May in the Guamajal prison in Villa Clara, a common prisoner named Soria physically attacked political prisoner Cecilio Monteagudo Sanchez, at the instigation of prison authorities. According to witnesses, prison official Jose Luis Collado was responsible for this attack.

Political prisoners are required to comply with the rules for common criminals and often are punished severely if they refuse. Detainees and prisoners often are subjected to repeated, vigorous interrogations designed to coerce them into signing incriminating statements, to force collaboration with authorities, or to intimidate victims.

Despite international appeals for their release, after 17 months of detention without charges, the four leaders of the dissident working group--economists Vladimiro Roca Antunez and Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello, engineer Felix Antonio Bonne Carcasses, and lawyer Rene Gomez Manzano--were accused of sedition in November 1998 and convicted in March 1999 after a 1-day, closed trial. On July 16, one of the four, Marta Beatriz Roque, began to refuse all solid food and threatened to begin a complete hunger strike on September 2 if the Government did not answer the appeal she filed after the trial (see Section 1.e.). However, after promising her a quick response, the Government instead transferred Roque to a government-owned safehouse where she was kept in isolation for several months.

In June in the provincial prison of Guantanamo, prison authorities placed Alexander Taureaux Balvier in solitary confinement after he complained about the prison authorities' arbitrary decision to reduce family visits, including those by his mother, to 5 minutes. On June 29, common prisoners demonstrated against the mistreatment of Taureaux, and in response, the prison authorities called in the special brigade riot police for help. The demonstration did not become violent, and no one was injured in the incident.

On July 5, in a note smuggled out of the Combinado del Este prison in Havana, political prisoner Francisco Chaviano Gonzalez described the mistreatment that he said prison officials directed at him. According to Chaviano, prison authorities confined him to his cell without allowing him to mix with other prisoners or to exercise in the open court with other prisoners. He added that this was the third time during the last 3 months that he was isolated in his cell. Chaviano speculated that this treatment was in retaliation for a letter he wrote to Fidel Castro criticizing the arbitrariness of his detention and trial. In September Chaviano reportedly again was placed in isolation after a heated conversation with a prison official.

On August 15, prison authorities in Canaleta, Ciego de Avila province, placed Luis Campo Corrales (who was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment for piracy of a boat and another year for "disrespect") in isolation (known as a "punishment cell") for reportedly complaining about prison conditions. Witnesses reported that the cell in which he was placed previously was occupied by a prisoner infected with the HIV virus. According to these witnesses, prison authorities stripped Campo of all his clothes before confining him in the cell.

In September prison authorities in Ciego de Avila forced the parents of imprisoned journalist Joel Diaz Hernandez to submit to a strip search following a visit to their son (see Section 2.a.).

The Government does not permit independent monitoring of prison conditions by international or national human rights monitoring groups. The Government has refused prison visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) since 1989 and continued to refuse requests to renew such visits. Nonetheless, human rights activists continued to seek information on conditions inside jails despite the risks to themselves and to their prison sources.

d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

Arbitrary arrest and detention continued to be problems, and they remained the Government's most effective weapons to harass opponents. The Law of Penal Procedures requires police to file formal charges and either release a detainee or bring the case before a prosecutor within 96 hours of arrest. It also requires the authorities to provide suspects with access to a lawyer within 7 days of arrest. However, the Constitution states that all legally recognized civil liberties can be denied to anyone who actively opposes the "decision of the Cuban people to build socialism." The authorities invoke this sweeping authority to deny due process to those detained on purported state security grounds.

The authorities routinely engage in arbitrary arrest and detention of human rights advocates, subjecting them to interrogations, threats, and degrading treatment and conditions for hours or days at a time.

In January security agents temporarily detained independent journalist Omar Rodriguez Saludes and Jose Orlando Gonzalez Bridon, president of an independent labor organization, after they had lunch with a group of visiting foreign former legislators. On January 14, police temporarily detained about a dozen prodemocracy activists in Havana to prevent them from holding a public event in honor of Martin Luther King (see Section 2.b.). According to Human Rights Watch, in late January, police detained several members of the FLDH, including Dr. Biscet, the group's leader, for 4 to 6 days. The detentions prevented the FLDH members from participating in a January 25 celebration of the first anniversary of the Pope's 1998 visit to the country (see Section 2.c.).

In February state security officials detained a number of prodemocracy activists in various parts of the country to prevent them from commemorating the anniversary of the shootdown of two civilian airplanes over international airspace by the air force in 1996 (see Section 2.b.). In late February and early March, the Government temporarily detained nearly 100 prodemocracy activists and placed others under house arrest to keep them from expressing support for the four members of the Internal Dissident Working Group during their trial in March on charges of sedition (see Sections 1.e. and 2.b.).

On July 13, the police arrested Marcel Valenzuela Salt, a member of the Organization of Fraternal Brothers for Dignity, and 5 other persons while the 6 were en route to a church in Guanabacoa to attend a Mass in honor of the 41 persons who drowned when the Border Guard sank the tugboat "13th of March" (see Section 1.a.). Police officers detained all six persons and confiscated the truck driven by Valenzuela, even though the truck's papers clearly indicated that Valenzuela's father was the owner. Despite various attempts to have the truck returned to its rightful owner, police refused to do so. The truck finally was returned to its rightful owner in November. On August 15, police prevented human rights activists, including lawyer Leonel Morejon Almagro, leader of the environmental group Naturpaz and founder of Concilio Cubano, from meeting in Lenin Park, and confiscated Morejon's car (see Section 2.b.).

On September 8, security police told a number of human rights activists not to attend the annual procession in honor of the Virgin of Charity (see Section 2.c.). On the same day, police prevented some activists from meeting to discuss the formation of a forum on civil society. On October 19, security police prevented members of various organizations from organizing the Third Millennium Forum. These organizations intended to present a unified position on various domestic issues to delegations attending the Ninth Ibero-American Summit in Havana on November 15 and 16.

On October 21, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation issued a press release alerting the international community to the growing number of human rights activists being detained for short periods. The Commission noted that at least 40 people were detained for brief periods during the previous 2 weeks. On November 10, police arrested leaders of a farmers' organization that was preparing a conference for small farmers and agricultural operatives on November 12 in Matanzas (see Section 2.b.). These arrests were carried out to prevent human rights activists from preparing themselves for meetings that they hoped to have with government leaders attending the Ibero-American Summit. Also on November 10, police told a number of activists not to leave their homes in order to prevent them from participating in a planned protest in a public park in the Lawton section of Havana. On November 3, a week before the event, the authorities detained Dr. Biscet, who had announced the planned protest march in an October 28 press conference (see Section 2.b.). At year's end, Biscet remained in jail and was under investigation for "promoting public disorder." In the days prior to a planned meeting of NGO's on November 12, authorities detained temporarily or placed under house arrest approximately 150 prodemocracy activists (see Section 2.b.). On November 17, the authorities temporarily detained Biscet's wife, Elsa Morejon. On December 9, numerous persons were detained or told not to leave their homes on December 10, when human rights activists planned to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (see Section 2.b.). The same thing happened on December 16, the day before the popular pilgrimage to the church of St. Lazarus in the town of El Rincon outside Havana (see Section 2.c.).

The Government also arbitrarily arrested and detained independent journalists (see Section 2.a.). Independent journalists were told not to cover certain meetings and were prevented physically from attending the small farmers' conference in Matanzas (see Section 2.a.).

The Penal Code includes the concept of "dangerousness," defined as the "special proclivity of a person to commit crimes, demonstrated by his conduct in manifest contradiction of socialist norms." If the police decide that a person exhibits signs of dangerousness, they may bring the offender before a court or subject him to "therapy" or "political reeducation." Government authorities regularly threaten prosecution under this article. Both the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) and the IACHR have criticized this concept for its subjectivity, the summary nature of the judicial proceedings employed, the lack of legal safeguards, and the political considerations behind its application. According to the IACHR, the "special inclination to commit crimes" referred to in the Criminal Code amounts to "a subjective criterion" used by the Government to justify violations of the rights to individual freedom and due process of persons whose sole crime has been an inclination to hold a view different from the official view. On January 8, a Havana court reaffirmed the 4-year prison term for dangerousness imposed in 1998 on Lazaro Constantin Duran, leader of the Friends Club of an independent teachers' organization. On January 18, independent journalist Jesus Joel Diaz Hernandez was sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment for dangerousness (see Sections 1.e. and 2.a.). On July 17, a police officer threatened to arrest Merino Cabrera, a member of the Human Rights Workers' Party, for dangerousness and warned him against continuing his activities. A few days later, on July 27, Cabrera found a cardboard coffin on his front door with the words: "Rest in Peace."

The Government also used exile as a tool for controlling and eliminating the internal opposition. Amnesty International has noted that the Government had changed its tactics in dealing with human rights advocates, and that rather than arresting them and bringing them to trial, the "tendency" was to detain them repeatedly for short periods and threaten them with imprisonment unless they gave up their activities or left the country. The Government used these incremental aggressive tactics to compel Leonel Morejon Almagro to leave the country on October 19.

The Government also has pressured imprisoned human rights activists and political prisoners to apply for emigration and regularly conditioned their release on acceptance of exile. Human Rights Watch observed that the Government "routinely invokes forced exile as a condition for prisoner releases and also pressures activists to leave the country to escape future prosecution." In April the Government released independent journalist Reinaldo Alfaro Garcia, who had served 21 months of a 3-year prison sentence imposed in 1998 for "disseminating false news," on the condition that he leave the country.

Amnesty International has expressed "particular concern" about the Government's practice of threatening to charge, try, and imprison human rights advocates and independent journalists prior to arrest or sentencing if they did not leave the country. According to Amnesty International, this practice "effectively prevents those concerned from being able to act in public life in their own country."

e. Denial of Fair Public Trial

The Constitution provides for independent courts; however, it explicitly subordinates them to the National Assembly of the People's Power and the Council of State, which is headed by Fidel Castro. The ANPP and its lower level counterparts choose all judges. The subordination of the courts to the Communist Party, which the Constitution designates as "the superior directive force of the society and the State," further compromises the judiciary's independence.

Civil courts exist at municipal, provincial, and supreme court levels. Panels composed of a mix of professionally certified and lay judges preside over them. Military tribunals assume jurisdiction for certain counterrevolutionary cases.

The law and trial practices do not meet international standards for fair public trials. Almost all cases are tried in less than a day; there are no jury trials. While most trials are public, trials are closed when state security allegedly is involved. Prosecutors may introduce testimony from a CDR member as to the revolutionary background of a defendant, which may contribute to either a longer or a shorter sentence. The law recognizes the right of appeal in municipal courts but limits it in provincial courts to cases such as those involving maximum prison terms or the death penalty. Appeals in death penalty cases are automatic. The death penalty ultimately must be affirmed by the Council of State.

Criteria for presenting evidence, especially in cases of human rights advocates, are arbitrary and discriminatory. Often the sole evidence provided, particularly in political cases, is the defendant's confession, usually obtained under duress and without the legal advice or knowledge of a defense lawyer. The authorities regularly deny defendants access to their lawyers until the day of the trial. Several dissidents who have served prison terms reported that they were tried and sentenced without counsel and were not allowed to speak on their own behalf. Amnesty International has concluded that "trials in all cases fall far short of international standards for a fair trial."

The law provides the accused with the right to an attorney, but the control that the Government exerts over the livelihood of members of the state-controlled lawyers' collectives--especially when they defend persons accused of state security crimes--compromises their ability to represent clients. Attorneys have reported reluctance to defend those charged in political cases due to fear of jeopardizing their own careers.

Human rights monitoring groups inside the country estimate the number of political prisoners at between 350 and 400 persons. The authorities have imprisoned such persons on charges such as disseminating enemy propaganda, illicit association, contempt for the authorities (usually for criticizing Fidel Castro), clandestine printing, or the broad charge of rebellion, often brought against advocates of peaceful democratic change.

On March 1, in a 1-day trial, a court in Havana convicted the four members of the Internal Dissident Working Group--Vladimiro Roca Antunez, Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello, Felix Antonio Bonne Carcasses, and Rene Gomez Manzano--of "acts against the security of the State in relation to the crime of sedition." The four had been detained since July 1997, when they were arrested for expressing peacefully their disagreement with the Government. In 1997 the group had sought support from the international community for its concept of peaceful dissent from the Government's policies and publicly distributed a paper, "The Homeland Belongs to All," which presented a moderate response to the platform released by the Communist Party for its Fifth Party Congress. The Working Group also made a public appeal to citizens to abstain from participating in national elections (voting is not mandatory). On March 15, the government television station announced the following prison sentences for the four: 5 years for Vladimiro Roca, 4 years for Felix Bonne and Rene Gomez, and 31/2 years for Marta Beatriz Roque. All four appealed their convictions. On July 16, Roque began to refuse all solid food and later threatened to begin a full-scale hunger strike, to protest the Government's lack of response to her appeal. In September she ended the hunger strike after the Government promised to respond; however, the Government did not respond to the appeals of any of the four by year's end.

Others convicted on political charges during the year included independent journalists Manuel Antonio Gonzalez Castellanos, who was sentenced on May 6 to 2 years and 7 months' imprisonment for "contempt for authority" (see section 2.a.). On January 19, a court sentenced journalist Jesus Joel Diaz Hernandez to 4 years' imprisonment for "dangerousness" (see Sections 1.d. and 2.a.).

According to human rights monitoring groups inside the country, the number of political prisoners increased slightly during the year, in contrast to 1998 when the number of political prisoners fell after the release of 99 prisoners in response to an appeal by Pope John Paul II for clemency.

f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence

Although the Constitution provides for the inviolability of a citizen's home and correspondence, official surveillance of private and family affairs by government-controlled mass organizations, such as the CDR's, remains one of the most pervasive and repressive features of Cuban life. The State has assumed the right to interfere in the lives of citizens, even those who do not actively oppose the Government and its practices. The mass organizations' ostensible purpose is to "improve the citizenry," but in fact their goal is to discover and discourage nonconformity. Citizen participation in these mass organizations has declined; the economic crisis both has reduced the Government's ability to provide material incentives for their participation and has forced many persons to engage in black market activities, which the mass organizations are supposed to report to the authorities.

The authorities utilize a wide range of social controls. The Interior Ministry employs an intricate system of informants and block committees (the CDR's) to monitor and control public opinion. While less capable than in the past, CDR's continue to report on suspicious activity, including conspicuous consumption; unauthorized meetings, including those with foreigners; and defiant attitudes toward the Government and the revolution.

The Department of State Security often reads international correspondence and monitors overseas telephone calls and conversations with foreigners. The Government controls all access to the Internet, and all electronic mail messages are subject to censorship. Citizens do not have the right to receive publications from abroad, although newsstands in foreigners-only hotels and outside certain hard currency stores sell foreign newspapers and magazines. The Government continued to jam the U.S.-operated Radio Marti and Television Marti. Radio Marti broadcasts generally overcame the jamming attempts on shortwave bands, but its medium wave transmissions are blocked completely in Havana. The Government generally succeeded in jamming Television Marti transmissions. Security agents subjected dissidents, foreign diplomats, and journalists to harassment and surveillance, including electronic surveillance.

Human Rights Watch reported that in January authorities in Santiago notified Margarita Sara Yero of the Independent Press Agency of Cuba that she would be evicted from her home, where she had lived for 35 years (see Section 2.a.). On March 4, Mercedes Moreno, director of the New Press Agency, criticized the security forces for their intimidating tactics against her and her husband, a former political prisoner, that included the illegal entry of her home (see Section 2.a.). On June 18, a local security officer in Santiago de Cuba sent a threatening message, through a nonpolitical family member, to Rafael Oliva Reyes, who offered his house for purposes of conducting a solidarity fast with the fasters of Tamarindo 34 in Havana (see Sections 2.b. and 4). On June 24, a security agent told Alexis Rodriguez Fernandez, the national coordinator of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, that the authorities were fully aware of his activities in Havana, such as visiting embassies and participating in the Tamarindo 34 fast, and that they were preparing a judicial case of dangerousness against him.

On August 23, security agents forcibly evicted Ramon Humberto Colas Castillo, his wife Berta Mexidor Vasquez, their two children, and his mother from their house in Las Tunas. The couple had established an independent library in their house and worked as independent journalists for the Libertad press agency (see Section 2.a.). In November authorities evicted independent journalist Nestor Baguer from his home (see Section 2.a.).

The authorities regularly search persons and their homes, without probable cause, to intimidate and harass them. State security agents searched the homes of hundreds of human rights advocates and independent journalists, seizing typewriters, small cassette equipment, personal and organizational documents, books, and foreign newspapers. The authorities harass and target acts of repudiation at both dissidents and their family members. At times those taking part in such acts of repudiation invade and damage homes, as well as physically attack occupants (see Section 1.c.). Friends and relatives of independent journalists also are subjected to harassment (see Section 2.a.).

The authorities regularly detained human rights advocates after they visited foreign diplomatic missions, confiscated their written reports of human rights abuses, and seized copies of foreign newspapers and other informational material, including copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). On November 5, security police detained Jose Aquilar Hernandez of the 13th of July movement and independent journalist Clara Morales Martinez in Havana. They were taken to a police station where they were interrogated about a planned November 10 march in the Lawton area of Havana. Security officers also confiscated copies of the UDHR that they had in their possession. They both were released the next morning.

In August the president of an independent teachers' group said that his son lost his job because of state security interference. He claimed that security officials infiltrated an agent among his friends; when police found some drugs in the friends' possession, they then tried to implicate his son. Based on this, his son, who was the only member of the family working, lost his restaurant job. On June 28, Avila Eloina Heredia Cervantes of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in Ciego de Avila lost her job at the cafeteria of the central train station in Moron. In 1997 she had lost her job in another restaurant.

There were numerous credible reports of forced evictions of squatters and residents who lacked official permission to reside in Havana (see Section 5).

Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, including:

a. Freedom of Speech and Press

The Government does not allow criticism of the revolution or its leaders. Laws against antigovernment propaganda, graffiti, and disrespect of officials carry penalties of from 3 months to 1 year in prison. If President Castro or members of the National Assembly or Council of State are the objects of criticism, the sentence can be extended to 3 years. Charges of disseminating enemy propaganda (which includes merely expressing opinions at odds with those of the Government) can bring sentences of up to 14 years. In the Government's view, such materials as the UDHR, international reports of human rights violations, and mainstream foreign newspapers and magazines constitute enemy propaganda. Local CDR's inhibit freedom of speech by monitoring and reporting dissent or criticism. Police and state security officials regularly harassed, threatened, and otherwise abused human rights advocates in public and private as a means of intimidation and control.

In January a court in Moron, Ciego de Avila province, sentenced Jesus Joel Diaz Hernandez, director of the Cooperative of Independent Journalists of Ciego de Avila, to 4 years' imprisonment for dangerousness. Human Rights Watch reported that Diaz was accused of having met with delinquents and having disturbed the public order. He was tried the day after his arrest, making it impossible for him to prepare an adequate defense. In May a court in Holguin sentenced independent journalist Mario Gonzalez Castellanos, Cubapress correspondent in Holguin, to 21/2 years in the Holguin prison known as Cuba Si, for showing disrespect to Fidel Castro.

The Constitution states that print and electronic media are state property and cannot become in any case private property. The Communist Party controls all media--except a few small church-run publications--as a means of indoctrinating the public. Even the church-run publications are watched closely, denied access to mass printing equipment, and subject to governmental pressure. On November 1, in a televised speech, President Castro expressed his displeasure with an article in the Pinar-based Catholic Church magazine Vitral, mentioning the editor by name.

All media must operate under party guidelines and reflect government views. The Government attempts to shape media coverage to such a degree that it not only continued to exert pressure on domestic journalists, but also sought to increase its pressure on groups normally outside the official realm of control, such as visiting international correspondents. Resident foreign correspondents reported an increase in governmental pressure, including official and informal complaints about articles, threatening phone calls, and lack of access to officials.

In February the National Assembly passed the Law to Protect National Independence and the Economy. This law outlaws a broad range of activities as undermining state security, and toughens penalties for criminal activity. Under the law, anyone caught possessing or disseminating literature deemed subversive, or supplying information that could be used by U.S. authorities in the application of U.S. legislation, is subject to fines and to prison terms of 7 to 20 years. While many activities between Cuban nationals and foreigners possibly could fall within the purview of this new law, it appears to be aimed primarily at independent journalists.

The new law increases the penalties and broadens the definitions of activities covered by the 1996 Cuban Dignity and Sovereignty Act, which already proscribes citizens from providing information to any representatives of the U.S. Government, or seeking any information from them, that might be used directly or indirectly in the application of U.S. legislation. This includes accepting or distributing any publications, documents or other material from any origin, which the authorities might interpret as facilitating implementation of such legislation.

No one was charged yet with violating the new law by year's end, but all but a handful of independent journalists admitted that its very existence had some effect on their activities and their reporting, with some calling its passage the most effective form of harassment of the press during the year. Many independent journalists were threatened either anonymously or openly with arrest and conviction based on the new law, some repeatedly over the months since the law took effect. The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) reported that, following the release in January of independent journalist Lorenzo Paez Nunez after he completed serving an 18-month prison sentence for "disseminating false news," authorities repeatedly harassed him and threatened him with application of the new law. Cubapress director Raul Rivero reported that the authorities picked him up outside the Havana Libre Hotel and told him that he and Christian Liberation Movement founder Oswaldo Paya Sardinas would be the first to feel the full consequences of the law.

In February National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon told foreign correspondents that under the new law, even reporters working for accredited foreign media could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison if the information they publish is deemed to serve U.S. interests. Several times during the year, the domestic press, and even President Castro in televised speeches, specifically mentioned correspondents from international news services and publications as being particularly unresponsive to the Government's positions, and possibly serving U.S. interests.

Credible reports indicated that, after several sharp attacks in the local press, including accusations of distortion, sensationalism, calumny, and manipulation, the Government persuaded a major international news agency to replace its bureau chief in Havana by promising increased access to government officials if it did so. Two other longtime resident foreign correspondents also left under difficult circumstances.

In January state security officials ordered visiting Radio Netherlands correspondent Edwin Koopman to leave the country for activities inconsistent with his journalism visa. Apparently, activities that Koopman was conducting for Pax Christi-Netherlands came to the Government's attention, and were given as the reason for his expulsion.

In November security agents and government supporters seriously damaged a Cable News Network camera during an attack on dissidents in Dolores Park in the Lawton section of Havana. Taped coverage of the incident appeared to indicate that the cameraman was in fact the target. The cameraman was among the foreign news crews that arrived to cover a march announced to call attention to human rights problems before the Ibero-American Summit later that month. The few activists who managed to get to the park were set upon by members of mass organizations holding a progovernment picnic and rally in the same place (see Section 2.b.). International coverage of the attack led to a 6-hour speech by Fidel Castro in which he described the dissidents as criminals and their antagonists as devoted patriots.

The Government continued to jam the U.S.-operated Radio Marti and Television Marti (see Section 1.f.).

The Government continues to subject independent journalists to internal travel bans, arbitrary and periodic detentions (overnight or longer), small acts of repudiation (see Section 1.c.), harassment of family and friends, seizures of computers, office and photographic equipment, and repeated threats of prolonged imprisonment. Independent journalists in Havana reported a general decrease in harassment, but there continued to be reports of constant threatening phone calls and harassment of family members in the weeks leading up to the Ibero-American Summit in November. Outside the capital, journalists reported an increase in detentions, threats, and harassment during the same period.

In Santiago de Cuba, independent journalist Santiago Santana was detained three different times; on one occasion in September, security officials seized his camera and two tape recorders. Human Rights Watch reported that in January authorities in Santiago notified Margarita Sara Yero of the Independent Press Agency of Cuba that she would be evicted from her home, where she had lived for 35 years. The authorities claimed that she had abandoned the house, although neighbors confirmed that she resided there. On February 1, officials held a public meeting in which they criticized Yero for not voting for Communist candidates and for not participating in the local CDR; according to press reports, she received an eviction notice the following day. On March 4, Mercedes Moreno, director of the New Press Agency, criticized the security forces for their intimidating tactics against her and her husband, a former political prisoner, which included illegal entry into her home, and citing her and her husband to appear at different police stations in Havana. She also accused security agents of forcing traffic police regularly to issue traffic violations to her and her husband, with exorbitant fines.

In August in Ciego de Avila, neighbors rousted Jorge Enrique Rives, of the Patria Agency, and his family, including elderly relatives, from their beds and seriously assaulted them, while shouting revolutionary slogans. Also in August, independent journalists and private library owners Ramon Colas and Berta Maxidor, their young children (ages 9 and 13), and Colas's 73-year-old mother were evicted from their house in Las Tunas without warning, and all of their belongings were taken to a shelter many miles out of town. Security officials told Colas and Maxidor that they were occupying the house, which they had lived in for 13 years, illegally. The authorities temporarily detained Colas at that time for arguing with them.

In September the parents of imprisoned independent journalist Jesus Joel Diaz Hernandez were harassed and forced to submit to a strip search at the end of a strictly regulated visit to their son. In October unknown assailants damaged the house of Cubapress correspondent Jesus Labrador Arias in Guantanamo province by throwing stones at it in the middle of the night. On October 15, an immigration officer requested the return of the passport of Magaly de Armas, the wife of imprisoned Internal Dissident Working Group member Vladimiro Roca Antunez, shortly before she was scheduled to travel abroad to accept an award on behalf of her husband and the other three imprisoned Working Group members for a publication by the group that defended freedom of the press (see Section 2.d.).

In November the authorities detained independent journalist and activist for the blind Juan Carlos Rodriguez for 3 days, ostensibly to prevent him from covering activities related to the Ibero-American Summit. Rodriguez's wife also was called in repeatedly to her neighborhood police station and threatened. Also in November, the Government prevented independent journalists from covering a conference of small farmers in Matanzas.

In November the landlord of octogenarian Nestor Baguer, dean of the independent journalists and founder of the original Independent Press Agency of Cuba, asked Baguer to vacate his apartment after he was mentioned, along with several dozen other opposition members and foreign diplomats, by Fidel Castro in a 6-hour speech. Reportedly his landlord evicted him under pressure from members of the local CDR, who objected to living so close to a named criminal.

Many of the detentions, house arrests, and threats that occurred during the year were in conjunction with major events on the dissidents' and the Government's calendars. The authorities ordered dozens of independent journalists to remain in their homes on February 24, the anniversary of the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft over international air space by the air force. The Government also detained or threatened many journalists before and during the March 1 trial of the four members of the Internal Dissident Working Group, and on March 15, the day of their sentencing (see Section 1.e.). Many of the dissidents detained and threatened prior to the Ibero-American Summit were journalists (see Sections 1.d. and 2.b.). The Government ordered several of them to return to their home provinces, including Edel Garcia to Caibarien, or ordered them not to travel to Havana at that time. The authorities detained journalists along with other dissidents during protests organized by the environmental organization Naturpaz on August 15 and September 20 (see Section 2.b.).

In Havana the authorities repeatedly detained Oswaldo de Cespedes of the Cooperative of Independent Journalists and threatened to reopen charges against him that date back to 1996. The authorities picked up Jesus Zuniga, also of the Cooperative of Independent Journalists, on his way to visit a foreign diplomatic mission, detained him for several hours, and interrogated him frequently about alleged connections with foreign radical groups.

In August officials denied permission to Raul Rivero, poet, journalist, and director of Cubapress, to travel abroad to receive a journalism prize. According to newspaper reports, when asked about keeping Rivero from traveling, Fidel Castro replied that Rivero would never leave the country. The authorities detained independent journalist Angel Pablo Polanco three times in connection with his activities with various dissident groups, and confined him to a military hospital, ostensibly for