Black Spring (Cuba)

Black Spring is the 2003 crackdown on Cuban dissidents. The government imprisoned 75 dissidents, including 29 journalists on the basis that they were acting as agents of the United States by accepting aid from the US government. Amnesty International described the 75 Cubans as prisoners of conscience. The Cuban government said "the 75 individuals arrested, tried and sentenced in March/April 2003 ... are demonstrably not independent thinkers, writers or human rights activists, but persons directly in the pay of the US government. ... [T]hose who were arrested and tried were charged not with criticizing the government, but for receiving American government funds and collaborating with U.S diplomats."

The crackdown on dissidents began on 18 March, during the US invasion of Iraq, and lasted two days.

The crackdown received international condemnation, with critical statements coming from the George W. Bush administration, the European Union, the United Nations and various human rights groups, including Amnesty International. Responding to the crackdown, the European Union imposed sanctions on Cuba in 2003, that were lifted in January 2008. 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".

All of the dissidents were eventually released, most of whom were exiled to Spain starting in 2010.