Posted on 11/07/2002 10:00:40 PM PST by free biscet
Ex-prisoner calls for probe of Cuban prisons
HAVANA, Cuba (AP) --One of Cuba's best-known political prisoners, freed last week after almost three years behind bars, complained Wednesday about his treatment and called for an investigation of Cuban prison conditions.
Oscar Elias Biscet complained that he had to sleep for more than a year on a makeshift hammock-type bed and was given small rations of food, showing reporters a tray with what he said was a normal lunch -- the size of an airplane meal.
"I ask international human rights organizations to supervise Cuban prisons," Biscet said at his first news conference with Cuba-based international reporters since his October 31 release. But he acknowledged it was unlikely that Cuba's communist government would agree.
Biscet was arrested in November 1999 for hanging three Cuban flags upside down in a sign of protest against the government, especially its public health policies.
He was sentenced in February 2000 to three years in prison for dishonoring patriotic symbols, public disorder and instigating delinquency. He was let out a few months early on parole.
The international human rights group Amnesty International on Wednesday welcomed the Biscet's release and called for the liberation of others it considers prisoners of conscience.
Amnesty International said in a statement from New York that two such prisoners, Leonardo Bruzon Avila and Carlos Alberto Dominguez Gonzalez, were "detained solely for the nonviolent exercise of their rights to freedom of expression and association."
Both men have been held awaiting trial since their detention on February 23, the statement said.
Cuba's government maintains it holds no political prisoners, only common criminals, and generally characterizes dissidents as "counterrevolutionaries."
The rights organization expressed particular concern for the health of Bruzon, who reportedly was hospitalized recently following a hunger strike to protest his detention.
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