Black Spring of Cuba

The spring of 2003 is known as the Black Spring of Cuba, when the Castro regime put in jail 75 political opponents. Many of them are still prisoners.

These prisoners argued for freedom, human rights and democracy, but in a manner of which the government disagreed. They were arrested and subjected in few days to summary trials, where they were condemned to long sentences from 15 to 28 years in prison. According to the Castro government, these people were "threatening national security" by disseminating ideas against the Communist system.

The European Union, the Pope, human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders and Amnesty International (which declared these people prisoners of conscience), intellectuals and artists condemned these arrests.

Independent reporting had become more available at this time, inside and outside the island. One example was the independent magazine De Cuba, launched by Raul Rivero and Ricardo Gonzalez. Also, in that time the Sakharov Prize, Oswaldo Paya, carried out the Varela Project, the most successful initiative of the opposition that get more than 10,000 signatures on May 2002, in support of a referendum for democratic reforms in Cuba.

Five years later, still 55 prisoners from the Black Spring of Cuba remain in prison. A group called Ladies in White, advocate for the freedom of all the Cuban political prisoners.