Cuban crackdown ordered from the top

A concerted crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Cuba last month was ordered "at the highest level" of the government, an outlawed human rights group said Tuesday.

The Catholic Church in Cuba, which often acts as go-between for dissidents and Cuban authorities, said earlier it had received assurances that there was "no national policy" to target opposition groups.

But the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, known by its Spanish acronym CCDHRN, insisted it had "no doubt that the order to brutally suppress (activists) was ordered or approved at the highest level" of the government.

In late August, the group said that over the preceding five weeks at least 65 men and women had been arrested by the secret police, 29 of whom remain in custody in the Americas' only one-party Communist-ruled nation.

According to the CCHR, there has been a "sustained" effort to ramp up a crackdown on pro-democracy activists, describing high levels police violence against "peaceful dissidents."

The rights group said it had recorded "at least" 2,221 arbitrary detentions so far this year, with an average of 278 per month -- twice as many as the number recorded in 2010.

Berta Soler, a leader of the activist group Ladies in White, earlier told AFP the group was planning to meet Cardinal Jaime Ortega on Tuesday and would ask him to intervene on behalf of dissidents.

Ortega's 2010 dialogue with Castro led to the release of 130 political prisoners, many of whom left Cuba for Spain with their relatives.

A US State Department spokesman said last week that Washington was "troubled by reports of increased violence by government-organized mobs against the Damas de Blanco in Havana and Santiago de Cuba in recent weeks.

"The use of government-organized mobs to physically and verbally abuse peaceful protesters is unconscionable," the US spokesman added, noting: "We call for an immediate end to the harassment and violence committed against the Damas de Blanco.

The CCDHRN called on foreign governments and international human rights groups to show "solidarity" with Cuban dissidents and urge Havana to end its "abusive practices."

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