BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuba's government remains as repressive under Raúl Castro as it was under his brother Fidel, according to the first in-depth report on the island's human rights since the younger Castro took power.

Titled "New Castro, Same Cuba,'' the report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) details a skein of cruel pressures on dissidents, relatives and friends that belie initial hopes Raúl Castro would be different.

"Castro inherited a system of abusive laws and institutions. . . . Rather than dismantle this repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active,'' said the report, released Wednesday in Washington.

It noted some changes in tactics since Castro officially took power early last year: the growing use of short-term ``arbitrary detentions'' -- 532 reported in the first half of 2009, compared with 325 in all of 2007 -- and at least 40 prosecutions for ``dangerousness,'' a catch-all charge less often used by Fidel Castro.

"But repression in Cuba under Raúl is not so different than it was under Fidel,'' the report's researcher and author, Nik Steinberg of HRW's Americas section, told El Nuevo Herald. "If you're a dissenter, your experience is still going to be abysmal.''

Although the report emphasized that "the Cuban government bears full and exclusive responsibility for the abuses,'' it also called on Washington to end its trade embargo and launch a multinational effort that would improve human rights on the island.

'MUTUAL RESPECT'

The Cuban diplomatic mission in Washington said Havana "does not recognize the legality of moral authority'' of HRW but "reiterates its unwavering willingness to hold a frank and open dialogue on any topic, on the basis of mutual respect.''

Past reports by HRW, an independent organization based in New York, have drawn the wrath of Cuba as well as Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez and Colombia's conservative President Alvaro Uribe.

Steinberg said HRW undertook the inquiry because of the perception that the younger Castro had improved the situation in Cuba. "We wanted to put on the table where Cuba stands on human rights,'' he said in a telephone interview from Washington.

Cuba has long justified its repression of dissidents as a necessary protection from U.S. hostility. "However, in the scores of cases . . . examined for this report, this argument falls flat,'' the 120-page HRW report noted.

Steinberg, who spent two weeks in Cuba this summer conducting about 60 interviews, worked in secret because the Havana government did not reply to HRW requests for meetings to discuss the human rights situation.

In its bleakest chapter, titled "State of Fear,'' the report details how the repression has created a profound "climate of fear'' that has led some mothers, brothers and lovers to sever contact with dissidents.

"Fear is a central part of the Cuban government's strategy of isolation, which pressures friends and family members to sever ties with dissidents,'' it noted. The isolation "takes a significant emotional and psychological toll and . . . may lead to depression or lasting psychological problems.''

It quoted human rights advocate Roberto Marrero la Rosa as alleging that his daughter-in-law was told by government officials that if she wanted to keep her job in a prosecutor's office she would have to divorce her husband and put their child up for adoption. She refused and was fired.

Enyor Díaz Allen, a Guantánamo dissident, reported that his mother cut off contact with him because of police pressures, and former political prisoner Digzan Saavedra Prat was quoted as saying his brother stopped talking to him after being threatened with the loss of his job.

"Totally true, no doubt about it,'' Elizardo Sánchez, a leading Cuban human rights activist, said of the report's key findings in a telephone interview from Havana.

THE CASTRO RECORD

Among HRW's other findings:

• Although dissident groups are "small and significantly isolated,'' their "marginalization is evidence not of the lack of dissent in Cuba, but rather of the state's ruthless efficiency in suppressing it.''

• When it comes to dissidents, Cuba systematically violates due-process rights recognized by most Western nations. Alexander Santos Hernández is quoted as saying he was arrested at 5:50 a.m. and sentenced at 8:30 a.m. to four years.

• Prisons "are overcrowded, unhygienic and unhealthy, leading to extensive malnutrition and illness.''

• Security officials routinely use short-term detentions ``to harass dissidents or prevent them from participating in groups or activities considered `counterrevolutionary.' ''

• Dissidents are "beaten, publicly humiliated and threatened by security officers and groups of civilians tied to the state.''

• They are "denied work, fired from jobs and fined, placing significant financial strains on their family.''

On its proposal for a new U.S. policy, HRW Americas director José Miguel Vivanco said the embargo is ineffective and imposes indiscriminate hardships on the Cuban people. The European Union and Canada's ``constructive engagement'' also has failed to push Cuba toward improved human rights.

The report proposes that Washington lift the embargo, then form a united front with the EU, Canada and Latin American democracies to give Cuba six months to free all 200 political prisoners or face a new set of coordinated sanctions.

"It's not easy, but not unrealistic,'' Vivanco said.

The HRW report came on the eve of a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Thursday on lifting the ban on Americans traveling to Cuba. Committee chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for ending the ban in an op-ed Tuesday in The Miami Herald.

Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen launched a counteroffensive Wednesday, inviting critics of the Cuban government to talk about the island's intelligence services and the government's role in harboring U.S. fugitives like Joanne Chesimard, convicted in 1977 in the shooting death of a New Jersey state trooper.

"The extradition of convicted felons, especially cop killers should be a prerequisite for normalizing relations,'' said Rep. Scott Garrett, R-New Jersey.

Chris Simmons, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, said the Cuban government runs most of the island's tourism sector and allowing U.S. tourist travel would enrich the regime -- and make it easier for it to recruit Americans as spies.

The Miami Herald correspondent in Washington, Lesley Clark, contributed to this report.