Cuba has deported eight Spanish women who took part in a protest for the release of political prisoners.
Cuban authorities seized their passports and airline tickets and told them to stay in their hotels after they took part in a march on Sunday by Cuban women demanding the release of their husbands and sons jailed for political reasons.
Spanish diplomats accompanied the women, members of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia party, to Havana airport and saw them onto a flight to Madrid.
The Catalan women - along with others from Sweden, Bosnia and Peru - had joined a march by a Cuban dissident group known as the "Ladies in White" because they dress in that colour and walk in silent protest demanding freedom for their men.
The deportations occurred on International Human Rights Day as Cuba's communist government announced it would sign two United Nations covenants on political, civil and social rights.
The Cuban government insists that tourists have no business meddling in Cuba's internal affairs and has in the past deported foreigners who support local dissidents.
Cuba's communist authorities insist there are no political prisoners in the one-party state, and it labels all dissidents as "mercenaries" on the payroll of the US government.