The number of political prisoners in Cuba has increased...

The number of political prisoners in Cuba has increased up to 230 in the first half of 2002, reported leader of the illegal Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz.
According to last year's estimates of this organization, there were 210 political prisoners in Cuba in the second semester of 2001.
In its new half-yearly report, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights stated that this number does not include some 30 political prisoners on whom they failed to obtain any new details but who are believed to be still in jail because of their long sentences for 'counterrevolutionary crimes.'
The report pointed to a relative drop in the total number of Cuban prison population, which, however, remains to be one of the world highest in terms of its ratio to the total Cuban population.
The Commission stressed that all prisoners are held in 'truly inhuman sanitary conditions,' living on meager food rations.
According to the Commission, some 50 to 100 persons are now on the death row, however, for the past two years no executions have been confirmed.
The human rights group reminded that the Cuban government continues to hide prison statistics. Cuba is the only country in the Americas, and one of the few in the world, that does not allow the International Red Cross to visit Cuban prisons.