The Cuban government engaged in systematic abuses against people arrested for protesting in July as part of a plan to suppress dissent, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Tuesday that documents 130 cases of arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment of detainees, and abuse-ridden criminal prosecutions.
According to the report, many of the detainees were held “incommunicado for days or even weeks, violently arrested, and, in some cases, ill-treated during detention.” Abuses in prison included being forced to “squat naked, apparently deliberately deprived of sleep, brutally beaten, and held in cells without natural light” or with little access to clean water.
The organization also says Cuban authorities systematically violated detainees’ rights to a fair trial, conducting summary trials and denying access to lawyers.
Read more at our news partner the Miami Herald.