In a largely symbolic but politically charged vote, the United Nations top human-rights body narrowly passed a resolution Thursday criticizing Cuba's crackdown on dissent and calling on the island to accept a visit by an international rights monitor.

U.S. officials, human-rights experts and others applauded the vote while a top Cuban official in Havana called the outcome "ridiculous" and said Cuba would not abide by the resolution.

"The United States has a pyrrhic victory," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told reporters in Havana.

Meeting in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Commission voted 22-21, with 10 abstentions, to pass the U.S.-backed resolution saying Cuba "should refrain from adopting measures which could jeopardize the fundamental rights" of its citizens.

The resolution, sponsored by Honduras, also "deplores the events which occurred last year in Cuba," referring to the sentencing of 75 independent journalists, opposition activists and others to prison terms from 6 to 28 years.

The arrests, along with the summary execution of three armed hijackers, sparked international condemnation and strained ties between Cuba and many of its former supporters.

Cuba described its actions as defensive, calling the dissidents "mercenaries" of an aggressive U.S. government seeking to topple its communist government.

Vladimiro Roca, a prominent Cuban dissident, called Thursday's UN vote "great moral support for our fight" but doubted it would lead to increased freedoms in Cuba's one-party state.

Miriam Leiva, wife of imprisoned dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe, used the resolution's passage to plead again for the release of her husband and other dissidents.

"They should be released because they have committed no crime," Leiva said. "Their only crime was to express their opinion."

In a surprise move, Cuban officials on Wednesday evening quietly released Julio Antonio Valdes, a human-rights activist and one of the 75 dissidents, who is suffering from chronic kidney disease and may need a transplant.

Cruz Delia Aguilar, Valdes' wife, said she hopes her husband, now hospitalized in Havana, will not have to serve out the remainder of his prison sentence, which ends in 2023. Human-rights officials say he could be returned to prison.

"They can do whatever they want to do, but I have faith they won't imprison him again," she said. "His health is very delicate."

Joanne Mariner, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Americas Division, welcomed Valdes' release but said the decision doesn't necessarily signify a change in Cuba's human-rights policy. She noted that Cuba has in the past released political prisoners for humanitarian reasons.

Mariner and other human-rights officials called for the immediate release of all the dissidents, including at least nine who are either elderly or severely infirm.

The annual vote before the UN Human Rights Commission has turned into one of the signature events in the ongoing diplomatic battle between the United States and Cuba.

Minutes after Thursday's vote, a member of the Cuban delegation attacked an anti-Castro activist outside the meeting, knocking him to the ground.

Last year, the commission approved one of the most mildly worded resolutions on Cuba's human-rights record in years, even though the vote came on the heels of the severe dissident crackdown.

Experts note that the UN vote is often influenced as much by geopolitical events and the internal domestic politics of member nations as it is by what is occurring on the island.

Latin American leaders are traditionally reluctant to criticize the domestic policies of nations in their hemisphere. They must also contend with a reservoir of support for Cuba because of its uncompromising stand toward the United States and because of its good works, including sending doctors to many poor nations.

The 53-nation UN Human Rights Commission contains some of the world's most egregious violators of human rights, including China, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Sudan. Each of these nations joined Cuba in voting against this year's resolution.

Roque told reporters the U.S. was able to secure narrow passage of the resolution only by "threatening" and "pressuring" other nations, which included telephone calls by President Bush to lobby the leaders of Mexico and Paraguay.

Mexico voted for the resolution while Paraguay abstained.

But one U.S. State Department official denied the U.S. twisted anybody's arm, saying each nation "decides on how they want to vote."