Amnesty calls for more freedom in Cuba

The human rights group Amnesty international appealed to Cuban President Raul Castro to release political prisoners and scrap laws that restrict fundamental freedoms, using the seventh anniversary of a major crackdown on dissent to call for change.

Amnesty was especially critical of Cuban laws that make vague offenses like "dangerousness" a jailable crime. Police are allowed to arrest somebody who has committed no crime if they can show the person has a proclivity to be dangerous in the future, Amnesty said.

"Cuban laws impose unacceptable limits on the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly," Kerrie Howard, Americas deputy director at Amnesty International, said in a statement Tuesday. Howard said Cuba "desperately needs political and legal reform to bring the country in line with basic international human rights standards."

The group said it was making the call for change around the anniversary of one of Cuba's largest recent crackdowns on dissent - the March 18, 2003, arrest of some 75 people, including many independent journalists, on charges including treason and working for an enemy state.

Fifty-three of them remain jailed and many have received lengthy sentences.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsdr-fRxAzXGO3iVCvHhenOLzGSgD9EG27380