US prisons are government´s ´shame,´ Cuba says

Just 3 days after a Cuban dissident died in prison following a hunger strike, an official Cuban newspaper decries US prison conditions.

HAVANA, February 26, 2010 (AFP) - An official Cuban newspaper Friday decried US prison conditions, calling them the "shame" of the US government, just three days after a Cuban dissident died in prison following a hunger strike.

Granma, the Cuban Communist Party's newspaper, pointed to the flaws of an incarceration system it called "deeply racist" against blacks and Hispanics.

The United States, which has the largest prison population in the world, held 1,610,446 sentenced prisoners at the end of 2008 in US federal and state correctional centers, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Among them, 591,900 were white, 528,200 were black and 313,100 were Hispanics.

The official Cuban newspaper also claimed, in part without attribution, that 7,000 US prisoners die in US detention each year, "a number of them having committed suicide or been assassinated."

According to official US numbers, a total of 4,679 detainees died in US prisons in 2006, the latest figures available.

The US Bureau of Justice Statistics said 3,242 detainees died in state prisons that year, of those 220 committed suicide and 55 were killed. Another 1,097 prisoners died in local detention centers, including 277 who committed suicide and 34 who were killed, while 340 detainees died in federal prisons.

"Physical and direct forms of brutality and torture against prisoners are indemic in US prisons," Granma said in an article entitled "the shame of the government of the United States."

The article came just three days after Afro-Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata died in prison following an 85-day hunger strike to protest his prison conditions. The prisoner of conscience's death sparked worldwide condemnation but was hushed in Cuban media.

Washington and Ottawa launched renewed their calls for Havana to release Cuban political prisoners, who number about 200 according to dissidents.

In a surprising show of contrition, Cuban President Raul Castro said he "regrets" Zapata's death, but denied there was repression in the only single-party Communist state in the Americas.

Pro-government website Cubadebate.cu briefly posted Castro's comments before removing them without explanation.

Cuba claims it has no political prisoners; according to officials, regime opponents are "mercenaries" in the pay of Washington or right-wing Cuban exiles.