"I think what is happening in Iraq is going to send a very positive signal, and it is a very good example for Cuba, where we saw that last week the Fidel Castro regime ordered the arrest of more than 80 citizens, none of them criminals, drug traffickers and simply for their ideas, including teachers, poets, and journalists," he told local media.

Hertell said the US-led war is the beginning of a campaign aimed at all countries around the world implementing a multiparty democratic system, including Cuba, the only one-party communist system in the Americas.

A countrywide crackdown in Cuba began last month after 34 independent journalists took part in an ethics workshop at the residence of the head of the US Interests Section in Havana, James Cason.

State-run television reported then that the detainees were being held for "provocation" and "subversive activities" allegedly hatched by Cason.

Some 79 of the dissidents accused of threatening Cuba's national security and collaborating with the United States have received sentences of up to 28 years in prison.

The United States and Cuba do not have full diplomatic relations, and Washington has had tough economic sanctions clamped on Havana for more than four decades.

SPACE.WIRE