Black Spring refers to the 2003 crackdown on Cuban dissidents.^[1][2][3][4] The government imprisoned 75 dissidents, that included 29 journalists^[1], as well as librarians, human rights activists, and democracy activists. Amnesty International adopted 75 Cubans as prisoners of conscience.^[5]

The crackdown on grassroots activists began on March 18 and lasted two days.^[1]

Responding to human rights violations, the European Union imposed sanctions on the Castro regime in 2003, that were lifted on January 2008.^[6] The European Union declared that the arrests "constituted a breach of the most elementary human rights, especially as regards freedom of expression and political association".^[7]

Contents 1 Imprisoned people 2 Related movements 3 See also 4 External links 5 References

[edit] Imprisoned people

Manuel Vázquez Portal received the International Press Freedom Award in 2003.^[8] Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez received the same prize in 2008, while locked up in a maximum-security prison.^[9]

List of 75 jailed dissidents and their sentences:^[5]

[edit] Related movements

The wives of imprisoned activists formed a movement called Ladies in White. The movement received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 2005.

[edit] See also

• Cuban dissidents

[edit] External links

• Cuba's Long Black Spring - A report by the Committee to Protect Journalists
• Interviews (video) with imprisoned dissidents who were released to Spain
• Spring Nightmare - Manuel Vázquez Portal, an imprisoned Cuban writer, poet, and journalist, describes the prison conditions.

[edit] References