A special UN rights envoy urged Cuba today to free all political dissidents, grant freedom of expression and lift restrictions on travel.
In her annual report to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, French magistrate Christine Chanet said Cuba had continued to arrest dissidents, while journalists had been "threatened and intimidated."
She also accused Cuba of giving "disproportionate" sentences to those jailed for the expression of views, and repeated her alarm at the jail conditions some prisoners faced.
Ms Chanet, who was appointed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in early 2003 to probe allegations of abuse in Cuba, has been repeatedly refused permission to visit the Communist Caribbean state.
Among 10 recommendations in the report was a call to the Marxist government of President Fidel Castro to "release detained persons who have not committed acts of violence against individuals and property."
Ms Chanet also urged Cuba to halt the "prosecution of citizens who are exercising" such freedoms as expression, religion and assembly guaranteed under articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
"In 2004, more people were arrested and given disproportionate sentences for expressing dissident political opinions," she said.