Elizardo Sanchez, President of the Cuban Commission...

Elizardo Sanchez, President of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) sent a report on the death penalty to foreign media in Havana. Cuba is one of the countries that executes the most prisoners relative to its population, protested the internal opposition group. "We estimate that between 20 and 30 people were executed by firing squad in 1999" in Cuba, states the report signed by Elizardo Sanchez. The illegal group said it was "disturbing" that in proportional terms, Cuba resorts to capital punishment twice as often as China and five times as often as the United States. Sanchez called on the Cuban government "to join the global tendency to abolish the death penalty, and to declare an immediate moratorium" on executions. He also urged the international community to continue pressing Havana to bring to a halt its "machinery for exterminating human beings with the premeditation and ceremony used by states which continue to apply such an uncivilized form of punishment." Cuban authorities say the death penalty is "an exceptional measure applied in the case of especially appalling crimes," and that it will not be eliminated as long as "Cuba remains a target of U.S. aggression."