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**Posted by Doug Powers

Can it be long before Raúl Castro is invited to speak before a joint session of Congress?

HAVANA (AP) – Cuban lawmakers have passed a resolution denouncing Arizona’s new immigration law as “racist and xenophobic,” recalling an old dispute in the process: the argument that the United States’ purchase of Arizona from Mexico in the 19th century was tantamount to theft.
[...]
Several U.S. cities including Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego and Austin, Texas, have passed resolutions against the law or urged outright boycotts, and President Barack Obama has denounced it as “a misdirected expression of frustration.”

But the denunciation of the law by Cuban lawmakers, who called it a “brutal violation of human rights,” is sure to raise anger among U.S. backers of the law.

From Human Rights Watch:

Raúl Castro’s government has locked up scores of people for exercising their fundamental freedoms and allowed scores more political prisoners arrested during Fidel Castro’s rule to languish in detention, Human Rights Watch says in a report released today. Rather than dismantle Cuba’s repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active, the report says.

The 123-page report, “New Castro, Same Cuba,” shows how the Raúl Castro government has relied in particular on the Criminal Code offense of “dangerousness,” which allows authorities to imprison individuals before they have committed any crime, on the suspicion that they are likely to commit an offense in the future. This “dangerousness” provision is overtly political, defining as “dangerous” any behavior that contradicts Cuba’s socialist norms.

But who cares about that, because Cuba, like Mexico, is being critical of Arizona, the real criminal. Cue the Democrats!

**Posted by Doug Powers

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