International human rights organizations accuse the Cuban regime of systematic human rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extrajudicial executions (a.k.a. "El Paredón").

Cuban law harshly limits freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement, and the press. There is no due process; the judicial system is constitutionally subordinate to the government.

Censorship is extensive; Cuba ranks on the bottom of the 2008 Press Freedom Index. The few Cubans with official permissions to access Internet face Internet surveillance; the vast majority of Cubans face five-year prison sentences for connecting to Internet.

Like in many other socialist countries, emigration is illegal; even discussing emigration carries a six-month prison sentence.

Human Rights Watch states that "Although in theory the different branches of government have separate and defined areas of authority, in practice the executive retains clear control over all levers of power. The courts, which lack independence, undermine the right to fair trial by severely restricting the right to a defense." and "The government also imprisons or orders the surveillance of individuals who have committed no illegal act, relying upon provisions that penalize “dangerousness” (estado peligroso) and allow for “official warning” (advertencia oficial)."

Cuban people of African ancestry suffer from racism.

Although the population is now mainly black or mixed-race and young, its rulers are "mainly white".

Esteban Morales Dominguez has pointed to institutionalized racism in his book The Challenges of the Racial Problem in Cuba (Fundación Fernando Ortiz). Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba discusses the racial politics prevalent in communist Cuba.

Enrique Patterson describes race as "social bomb" and says that "If the Cuban government were to permit black Cubans to organize and raise their problems before [authorities] . . . totalitarianism would fall". Carlos Moore, who has authored extensive on the issue, says that "There is an unstated threat, blacks in Cuba know that whenever you raise race in Cuba, you go to jail. Therefore the struggle in Cuba is different. There cannot be a civil rights movement. You will have instantly 10,000 black people dead.”  He says that a new generation of black Cubans are looking at politics in another way.

Jorge Luis García Pérez, who was imprisoned and tortured for 17 years, states "The authorities in my country have never tolerated that a black person oppose the regime. During the trial, the color of my skin aggravated the situation. Later when I was mistreated in prison by guards, they always referred to me as being black".

Black Cuban activist José Luis García Pérez (Antúnez) has been in hunger strike since February 17, 2009 in support of Cuban political prisoners. Antúnez's hunger strike is taking place at his home in the Cuban city of Placetas, in the Sancti Spiritus province. Cuban political police officers have taken over Placetas and have denied foreign reporters’ access to Antúnez.

Antúnez's home was attacked in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday March 25th by State Security agents, according to the Cuban Democratic Directorate. The human rights activist has been in the house along with other Cuban members of the pro-democracy movement

Numerous opposition activists and Cubans not associated with the opposition movement have been detained as a result, including Ciro Díaz, who plays guitar in the underground punk rock band Porno para Ricardo, and photographer Claudio Fuentes on March 23.

The strike, begun on February 17 2009, demands of the Havana government that inhumane treatment end against prisoner Mario Pérez Aguilera, held at Santa Clara Provincial Prison; that Cuban citizen Caridad García Pérez be permitted to repair her home using her own means; and that the texts of the international human rights agreements signed by the Cuban government in February 2008, which the Cuban people do not know about, be published in Cuba. Joining Antúnez in this protest are fellow activists Iris Pérez Aguilera and Diosiris Santana Pérez.

http://www.contactomagazine.com/articles/cubaninhungerstrike0309.htm

Last January, the Cuban government celebrated its 50th anniversary in power after a 1959 revolution that soon became a Communist regime supported by the now defunct Soviet Union.

Even well-known so-called “progressive” leftists in American academia lament Castro’s racially-biased repressive regime.

This from Nathan Newman who is a contributing writer to such “progressive” [Socialist] propaganda rags as “The Nation” in an article dated, April 13, 2003.

“Democratic Left Against Cuban Repression”

“Below is a statement circulating among democratic left/socialist folks, largely by members of Democratic Socialists of America, condemning the recent trials and convictions of non-violent dissenters in Cuba. For those who know the left, there will be familiar names such as The Nation's Katha Pollitt, left historians like Maurice Isserman and Mel Dubofsky, 2002 NY Green Party Gubernatorial candidate Stanley Aronowitz, left journalists Doug Ireland and Ian Williams, and a host of other democratic left activists.

Many on the left will say this is the wrong time for this kind of letter by leftists who oppose the embargo and, even worse, military invasion as a wrong-headed approach to dealing with Castro's regime. I disagree. I think this is exactly the right time for the Left to act in solidarity with the Cuban people in defense of both democracy and social justice in that country. We should not force dissidents to choose between Bush's rightwing capitalist militarism and Castro's authoritarian repressive social justice policies. This is a call for leftist activists to stand up for both social justice and human rights against militarists and authoritarians of all persuasions.”

The Letter:

"We are women and men of the democratic left, united by our commitment to human rights, democratic government and social justice, in our own nations and around the world. In solidarity with the people of Cuba, we condemn the Cuban state's current repression of independent thinkers and writers, human rights activists and democrats. For "crimes" such as the authorship of essays critical of the government and meeting with delegations of foreign political leaders, some 80 non-violent political dissidents have been arrested, summarily tried in a closed court, without adequate notice or counsel, convicted, and given cruel, harsh sentences of decades of imprisonment. These are violations of the most elementary norms of due process of law, reminiscent of the Moscow trials of the Soviet Union under the rule of Stalin…

 The only conclusion that we can draw from this brute repression is that Cuban government does not trust the Cuban people to distinguish truth from falsehood, fact from disinformation. A government of the left must have the support of the people: it must guarantee human rights and champion the widest possible democracy, including the right to dissent, as well as promote social justice. By its actions, the Cuban state declares [that it is], despite its claims of social progress in education and health care, just one more dictatorship, concerned with maintaining its monopoly of power above all else.”

http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/000912.shtml

At the time this letter was written in 2003, it was signed by well over one hundred SOCIALISTS from all over the world!

 That these ignorant self-aggrandizing American Negroes (and as a black man myself, that the best term I can think of to call them) could go to Cuba and allow themselves to be used by a murderous butcher of black Cuban men and women, only further illustrates the degree of the insanity and soulless fealty to the basest instincts  in man a so-called “liberal” will stoop to, in order to embrace anything that is at odds with the best interests of the United States of America….even if it means the sacrifice of their own best interests. The Congressional Black Caucus is an embarrassment to, not only this country, but to me as an American who happens to have been born a black American. Made up of nothing but Democrats, it should be clarified that they do not represent a diversity of black Americans. As far as I am concerned, they only represent the fools who put them into office.

This nation is now being governed by fools…or worse, devils.

We've just witnessed what is surely a very important - I hesitate to say historic - moment in transatlantic relations. Barack Obama went further than any previous president in apologising for American behavior.

The man who has never had anything good to say about this country, and who before becoming President was a rabble-rousing "community organizer" who, along with his radical leftist America-hating buddies had as their agenda to "fight against 'the man'" and overthrow our system of government; some of them openly declaring war on America and engaging in terrorist bombings, went further to add:

Thanks to what I consider the enemies and haters of America who elected this less-than-a man to officiate over the destruction of our Constitutional government, we now have been "blessed" with a "president" that has as his mission in life to not only concede America's leadership, but one who is all too willing to spit on the graves of all the Americans who throughout the 20th century and in two world wars, liberated Europe and the world from Nazism, Soviet enslavement, and the fascism that Europe itself bred and from which it has never had the need, the courage, or the ability to save itself.

We have, thanks to the people who voted this irresponsible @$$ho!e into power, a president who the world is taking the measure of...and who find him sorely lacking in any sense honesty, integrity, intelligence, authority, leadership or character.