Periódico ecuménico cubano - Miami, Florida, mayo de 2008

Human Rights in Cuba: A brief look

John Suárez

In June of 1999 forty years after Fidel Castro came to power on January 1, 1959 Human Rights Watch published a special report CUBA'S REPRESSIVE MACHINERY Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution. What it said then sadly still applies today in Cuba:

Over the past forty years, Cuba has developed a highly effective machinery of repression. The denial of basic civil and political rights is written into Cuban law. In the name of legality, armed security forces, aided by state-controlled mass organizations, silence dissent with heavy prison terms, threats of prosecution, harassment, or exile. Cuba uses these tools to restrict severely the exercise of fundamental human rights of expression, association, and assembly. The conditions in Cuba's prisons are inhuman, and political prisoners suffer additional degrading treatment and torture. In recent years, Cuba has added new repressive laws and continued prosecuting nonviolent dissidents while shrugging off international appeals for reform and placating visiting dignitaries with occasional releases of political prisoners.

The full report is available online and if any of you are interested please provide me with your e-mail and I will send you the link. Sadly as we approach the 50th Anniversary of the Castro brothers in power there is nothing good new to report but more of the same, and in some cases things have gotten worse. More repression. More prisoners of conscience. More refugees. The Cuban regime has been able due to human rights setbacks in the West to take the offensive in undermining international human rights standards abroad.

For example in February 1997, Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina signed a ministerial resolution creating regulations governing foreign media reporting from Cuba. The regulations require that foreign correspondents demonstrate "objectivity, adhering strictly to the facts and in consonance with the professional ethics that govern journalism," or face reprimand or the withdrawal of credentials. On March 28, 2008 in a Human Rights Council resolution (A/HRC/7/L.24) on the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the Cuban delegation inserted an oral amendment at the end of preamble paragraph 10, as follows… "and also the importance for all forms of media to repeat and to deliver information in a fair and partial manner". The amendment was adopted by a vote of 29 in favor, 15 against and 3 abstentions. The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and Article XIX the Global Campaign for Free Expression both condemned that this undermines the freedom of expression.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. observed that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", and we are seeing this idea put into practice as regulations that have strangled the human rights of the Cuban people for decades are now being passed at the international level by the same dictatorship in alliance with others: China, Vietnam, Venezuela, North Korea, Nicaragua, and Singapore just to name a few.

Throughout our visit to Norway we have been asked "Is there change?" My response is yes, but not for the better in Cuba. The "Ladies in White" a group of mothers, sisters, and daughters beginning in 2003 had to take to the streets because their husbands had been arrested and sentenced to up to 28 years in prison for exercising the fundamental right to petition their government for political reforms or for being independent journalists in March of 2003.Amnesty International has identified 58 prisoners of conscience we place the number at 79, but these are partial numbers.  As you saw earlier this week ten members of the Ladies in White organized a sit in at the Plaza of the Revolution calling for an amnesty for their imprisoned family members. They were met with both verbal and physical violence and were dragged away by government officials.

We have seen improvement in one area. International solidarity has increased and thanks to the efforts of Cuba's dissident movement and international campaigns launched by democrats such as President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic sixteen have been released from prison some of them sent into exile but the majority of them remain in prison, and one has died literally harassed to death by Cuban authorities after being released due to cardiac problems.

Returning to the Human Rights Watch Report from 1999:

The Cuban government often welcomes visits from international organizations providing humanitarian aid, particularly those that have publicly opposed the U.S. embargo. But it routinely bans international human rights and humanitarian agencies that may be critical of its human rights record. The Cuban government has not allowed Human Rights Watch to return to Cuba since 1995. Cuba never allowed the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Cuba to enter the country.

This held true until the dictatorship was able to eliminate the post with the creation of the new UN Human Rights Council along with the elimination of the Special Rapporteur on Belorussia at the same time at a midnight session on June 19, 2007. Finally, I will return to the Human Rights Watch report which states:

The Cuban government bars regular access to its prisons by domestic and international human rights and humanitarian monitors. Cuba barred the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), which visits prisoners in custody for political and security offenses all over the world, from conducting prison visits in 1989. Cuba's refusal to allow human rights and humanitarian groups access to its prisons represents a failure to demonstrate minimal transparency. Moreover, the government's barring of the ICRC, which works behind the scenes to protect the rights of political prisoners and does not publicize its findings, shows a profound lack of concern for those prisoners' welfare.

The Cuban government saw inspections of its prisons by the ICRC in July of 1959.  Requests in 1960 for the ICRC to visit the prisons and later to visit Cuban exiles detained following the Bay of Pigs invasion were rejected by the Cuban government.  Nearly thirty years later in 1988 and 1989 Cuba allowed visits and then cut them off again. The last public request by the International Red Cross was made on December 7, 2006.

That means with the exception of one year for the past 49 years the Cuban government has been able to deal with prisoners with complete impunity and no outside oversight. That is why we must speak up for them and demand both their decent treatment and release along with access to them by the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international human rights organizations.