US urges Cuba to free prisoners 'immediately'

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States on Wednesday urged Cuba to free political prisoners immediately and to improve human rights on the communist-ruled island.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood issued the appeal on the sixth anniversary of a crackdown on 75 rights activists by the Cuban government, which has been at loggerheads with the United States for decades.

He said the 75 journalists, human rights monitors, librarians and others were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 14 to 30 years for their "nonviolent advocacy" of political, social, and economic reforms on the island.

Wood said 55 of them "remain in prison, many of them under harsh conditions," according to a statement he read at the daily media briefing.

"We call upon the Cuban government to immediately release these and other political prisoners being held in Cuban jails and to undertake measures to improve human rights conditions in Cuba," Wood said.

In Cuba, there are 219 political prisoners behind bars, including 67 adopted as prisoners of conscience by rights group Amnesty, according to the illegal Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation.

During a visit to Washington on Saturday, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil told his US counterpart Barack Obama that the United States should improve ties with Cuba and other regional foes Venezuela and Bolivia.

Obama has said he supports easing some US travel restrictions, and allowing greater cash remittances from relatives working in the United States to loved ones on the island, but has resisted calls to lift the US embargo in place since 1962.

Tuesday, US Senators asked the Treasury to respect the intent of a new law, passed a week ago, that eases trade restrictions with Cuba, after Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said the impact of the new rules would be negligible.