GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The top United Nations human rights watchdog on Thursday narrowly passed a U.S.-backed resolution criticizing Cuba and calling on it to accept a visit by an international monitor.

The resolution, sponsored by Honduras, was adopted by the U.N. Human Rights Commission by 22 votes to 21, with 10 abstentions.

It said that Cuba "should refrain from adopting measures which could jeopardize the fundamental rights, the freedom of expression and the right to due process of its citizens."

It added that it "deplores the events which occurred last year in Cuba," referring to the sentencing of 75 dissidents to prison terms ranging from six to 28 years on charges of working with U.S. diplomats to undermine Cuba's socialist system.

Honduran Ambassador Benjamin Zapata said the resolution was not an attack on the integrity of Cuba.

"It is a constructive suggestion urging the government of Cuba to consider freedom of expression, democracy and pluralism," he said.

"It is an appeal that full civil and political rights be granted to the Cuban people with full participation and freedom of opinion without fear or reprisals."

But Cuban delegate Juan Antonio Fernandez said Honduras had presented the resolution under heavy pressure from the United States and it was "a fresh episode in a farce which the United States government has been imposing on the commission for a decade now."

Fernandez said he was "outraged at the shameful role of the government of Honduras. We feel pity for its ridicule."

Thirty-five countries put their names down as co-sponsors of the Cuban resolution.

Richard Williamson, head of the U.S. delegation, said the crackdown last year had been "one of the worst acts of political repression against advocates of peaceful change in Cuba's 45-year dictatorship."

He saluted Honduras' "courageous decision to table this resolution in the face of unrelenting Cuban intimidation."

Cuba's human rights record comes under regular scrutiny at the annual six-week meeting of the U.N. watchdog, at the urging of the United States. The Cuban government is particularly infuriated that resolutions in recent years have come from Latin American countries, which it accuses of being "Washington's toadies."

Seven other Latin American countries -- Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Peru -- backed Honduras, the United States and the European Union in supporting the resolution. Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay abstained.

Russia, China and most African countries voted against the resolution.

In Havana, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque called a news conference to talk about the vote.

Veteran human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez called the vote "appropriate and justified if we take into account the situation concerning civil and economic rights here.

"The resolution does not condemn the government of Cuba, but rather exhorts it to cooperate with the international community to undertake modernizing reforms," said Sanchez, of the non-governmental Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation. "It was very respectful of Cuba's sovereignty."

The resolution also called on Cuba to accept a visit from the U.N. human rights expert on Cuba, Frenchwoman Christine Chanet.

Cuba still has refused to receive Chanet, claiming such a visit could infringe its sovereignty. Chanet has nonetheless monitored Cuba's record from a distance.

In a report based on meetings with activists, human-rights investigators and other governments, she said the sentencing of the dissidents represented an "unprecedented wave of repression" in the Caribbean nation.

She said she also was concerned that Cuba suspended a moratorium on use of the death penalty and executed three Cubans who hijacked a ferry to try to reach the United States.

Cuba claims that the human rights of its citizens are being violated by the United States through the 40-year-old economic embargo against the island nation.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.