Fidel Castro takes blame for gay persecution

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro told a Mexican newspaper he takes blame for the persecution of gays in 1960s Cuba. He describes the time as a "great injustice" that arose from the island's history of discrimination against homosexuals.

Castro said he was not prejudiced against gays, but "if anyone is responsible (for the persecution), it's me."

At the time gay men were rounded up as supposed counterrevolutionaries and placed in forced labor camps. Official persecution of gays continued into the 1970s before homosexual acts were decriminalized in 1979.

Today, Cuba's medical service provides free gender reassignment operations.