PLEASE NOTE: NEW LINK ON THE COALTION OF CUBAN-AMERICAN WOMEN BLOG

The Coalition of Cuban-American Women's blog is now linked (see list of links to the right) to
Memorial Cubano.

CUBA FACTS - INSTITUTE OF CUBAN & CUBAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

The following articles represent come from the Institute of Cuban & Cuban-American Studies:


SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN PRE CASTRO CUBA (English)
http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/Cuba%20Facts%20Issue%2043%20December.htm

CONDICIONES SOCIO-ECONOMICAS EN CUBA ANTES DE LA REVOLUCION (Espanol)
http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/spn/Cuba%20Facts%20Issue%2043December2008%20SPANISH.htm


LABOR RIGHTS IN CUBA (English)
http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/Cuba%20Facts%20Issue%2045%20February.htm

LOS DERECHOS LABORALES EN CUBA (espanol)
http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/spn/Cuba%20Facts%20Issue%2045February2009%20SPANISH.htm


WHAT CUBANS CANNOT DO UNDER RAUL CASTRO
http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/Cuba%20Facts%20Issue%2042%20August.htm

RESPUESTA AL INFORME OFICIAL: UNA RESPUESTA NECESARIA por RENE GOMEZ MANZANO

Please note: The length of the response to the Official Report of the UN Universal Periodic Review on Cuba, written by René Gómez Manzano makes it impossible to publish in its entirety. Please see the following link:

URL: http://www.netforcuba.org/espanol/News-SP/2009/Feb/Noticia11479.htm

UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW OF CUBA - A MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

8 February 09

Release from FIDH - With the support of a large majority of member States of the UN Human Rights Council, Cuba was submitted to a concert of praises, rather than an objective evaluation of its human rights record, on the occasion of its review by the UN human rights Council, on February 6th 2009. The Cuban government as of yesterday failed to commit to any substantive progress on the occasion of the review.

A large number of countries, reviving the 1970s “non-aligned movement”, occupied the three hour debate with praises of the alleged achievements of Cuba, and failed to reflect objectively the human rights challenges. In particular, a huge majority refused to question Cuba about major violations, such as the detention of political prisoners, the restrictions of freedom of expression and of movement, the blocade of human rights defenders and the total lack of independence of justice. Praises of the alleged Cuban record in the field of economic social and cultural rights failed to include the challenges in these sectors.

Questioned nevertheless by members of the Western group and some Latin American countries on violations of civil and political rights, the Cuban officials refused to commit to achieving progress, in contradiction with the spirit of the review.

In earlier statements, the government of Cuba had confirmed its ratification of the ICCPR and the ICESCR, as well as indicated its positive response to an invitation of the UN Special rapporteur on Torture. Yet, as recognised Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President, “these declarations were made previously to the UPR review. They fall short from the obligations Cuba as a long-standing member of the UN human rights council to cooperate with ALL special procedures. We also awaited commitments to guarantee the freedom of association and of movement of independent human rights defenders, to abolish death penalty and to put an end to the arbitrary detention of all political prisoners”.

Yet, as the process concludes in June with the adoption of the UPR report, “Cuban has a few months to revisit its position and respond to the concerns of the overarching human rights community”, indicated Mrs Belhassen.

Paris, Geneva, February 6th 2009

AS UN CONDUCTS UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW, 205 POLITICAL PRISONERS, INCLUDING 23 JOURNALISTS, AWAIT RELEASE

As the UN Human Rights Council prepares to hold its universal periodic review of the situation in Cuba on 5 February in Geneva, Reporters Without Borders points out that the Cuban government, for all its denials and claims to have a “clear conscience,” continues to hold 23 journalists solely because of their dissident views and still refuses to permit an independent press.

The press freedom organisation hopes that mediation by other Latin American countries and by Spain, and the new US administration’s declared readiness to dialogue could open the way to the release of the imprisoned journalists.

“Almost a year has passed since Raúl Castro formally took over as president on 24 February 2008, but the few signs of an opening have fallen far short of the expectations of Cuban civil society and those outside the country that support it,” Reporters Without Borders said. “At that time, Cuba signed two UN human rights conventions but it still has not ratified them. The sanctions which the European Union imposed after the March 2003 “Black Spring” were quickly suspended and were finally lifted altogether last June, but Cuba gave nothing in return and continues to be the world’s second biggest prison for journalists, after China.”

The organisation added: “The universal periodic review by the UN Human Rights Council, on which Cuba has a seat, and the announced visit by the UN special rapporteur on torture should not be used to exempt Cuba from the commitments and concrete gestures that these imply. We call on those governments engaged in a dialogue with Cuba to step up mediation aimed at obtaining the release of the imprisoned journalists.”

According to a report released yesterday by the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (a Havana-based organisation that is illegal but nonetheless tolerated by the regime), Cuba currently has 205 political prisoners, down from 234 at the beginning of 2008. Although there were a few releases or cases of sentences being suspended for health reasons, the reports says a total of 54 prison inmates died as a result of suicide, violence by criminal detainees or negligence by the prison authorities in 2008, and that there were more than 1,000 brief arrests of suspected dissidents.

Ricardo González Alfonso, the Reporters Without Borders correspondent and editor of the magazine De Cuba, was returned to his cell last year after a long spell in the hospital of Havana’s Combinado del Este prison. He was repeatedly denied the right to speak to his children by telephone in December, after being awarded the 2008 Reporters Without Borders journalist of the year prize. Serving a 20-year jail sentence imposed during the 2003 “Black Spring” and now aged 58, González is currently being held in a damp and unhealthy isolation cell in which his health is deteriorating.

Fabio Prieto Llorente, 45, another independent journalist serving a 20-year sentence imposed in March 2003, is also being kept in solitary confinement. Held in El Guayabo prison on the Isle of Youth, where he is from, he has been on hunger strike since 28 January in protest against the harassment to which he has been subjected by the prison’s guards and the State Security (the political police).

Pablo Pacheco Avila, 38, a reporter with the Cooperativa Avileña de Periodistas Independientes who was also sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2003, was transferred from Morón prison to Canaleta prison in the central province of Ciego de Ávila at the start of January. According to a fellow detainee, he was moved because Morón prison needs to be repaired before the UN special rapporteur’s arrival.

Normando Hernández González, 39, the head of the Colegio de Periodistas Independientes in the central province of Camagüey, is very ill and unable to eat normally, but he did not receive appropriate treatment and was finally admitted to the Combinado del Este prison hospital on 8 January. He is serving a 25-year sentence that was imposed during the “Black Spring.” The Costa Rican government’s offer to take him on humanitarian grounds never received a reply.
Nineteen of the 23 dissident journalists currently imprisoned in Cuba were arrested in 2003. They were given sentences ranging from 14 to 27 years in prison on the alleged grounds that they were “mercenaries in the pay of the United States.”

Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world. It has nine national sections (Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). It has representatives in Bangkok, London, New York, Tokyo and Washington. And it has more than 120 correspondents worldwide.

© Reporters Without Borders 2009

ACTIVISTAS DE DERECHOS HUMANOS CUBANOS DENUNCIAN EN LA ONU VIOLACIONES A LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS EN CUBA

COMUNICADO
Ginebra, Suiza, 4 de febrero de 2009.

Directorio Democrático Cubano.

Activistas de derechos humanos cubanos denunciaron el miércoles, 4 de febrero, las arbitrariedades del régimen de La Habana ante delegados, organizaciones no gubernamentales y periodistas que participan en la sesión del Examen Periódico Universal del Consejo de Derechos Humanos de la ONU.

Bertha Antúnez, reconocida activista de derechos humanos y Omar Pernet Hernández, ex prisionero de conciencia cubano del grupo de los 75 arrestados y condenados en la primavera negra del año 2003, brindaron sus testimonios a los presentes en el evento convocado por las organizaciones no gubernamentales UN Watch e Internacional Demócrata de Centro.

Asimismo, durante la actividad se logró hacer comunicación con los representantes de las dos organizaciones que desde Cuba lograron insertar informes de denuncia sobre las violaciones a los derechos humanos que ocurren de forma sistemática en la Isla.

“Durante el 2008 el Consejo de Relatores de Derechos Humanos de Cuba recibió más de mil cuatrocientas denuncias, también documentamos más de cien muertos en unas treinta prisiones, de un total de más de doscientas prisiones en todo el país, esto como resultado del rigor carcelario, de las torturas y tratos crueles, inhumanos y degradantes, y sobre todo como producto de las palizas y los castigos a que los reclusos cubanos, más de cien mil, son sometidos cada día. Cerca de sesenta de estos muertos se ahorcaron, casi todos tienen menos de cuarenta años. También alrededor de setenta disidentes pacíficos fueron enjuiciados por los tribunales, cincuenta y ocho de ellos fueron encarcelados con condenas de entre dos y cinco años de cárcel por ejercer los derechos contenidos en la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos y el Pacto Internacional de los Derechos Civiles y Políticos”, expresó desde La Habana Juan Carlos González Leiva, secretario ejecutivo del Consejo de Relatores de Derechos Humanos ante los delegados de países y miembros de organizaciones no gubernamentales presentes en el evento.

“Nosotros somos perseguidos y hemos recibido castigos, hemos sido expulsados de las viviendas desde donde trabajamos, se nos corta la comunicación telefónica y corremos un inminente riesgo de cárcel por hacer todo este trabajo. (…) en el poco tiempo que tenemos no podemos explicar completamente lo que ocurre en Cuba en el tema de derechos humanos pero sí podemos decir que el 24 de febrero de 2008 en Cuba se estableció la dinastía de los hermanos Castro, que en Cuba el pueblo cubano permanece secuestrado sin ejercer la soberanía, ni los derechos ni las libertades públicas”, prosiguió González Leiva, quien instó al relator contra la tortura que ha manifestado su deseo de visitar a la Isla, a que se reúna no solo con los activistas de derechos humanos sino con las víctimas y testigos de la represión.

El foro contó además con la presentación sobre el uso de la tortura en las cárceles de Cuba realizada por John Suárez, del Directorio Democrático Cubano y la Internacional Demócrata de Centro; y la de León Saltiel, representante de la organización no gubernamental UN Watch, quien abordó el tema de las irregularidades en el desempeño del gobierno de Cuba dentro del seno de la ONU.

“Mientras el gobierno de Cuba trataba de distribuir información acusatoria contra el Directorio en otro salón, nosotros logramos exponer la realidad que viven los cubanos dentro de Cuba, a pesar de todas las trabas para lograr nuestra presencia aquí y que la voz del pueblo cubano se escuchara en este foro. Ha sido una victoria para la oposición cubana y la causa de la libertad de Cuba”, expresó John Suárez, director de relaciones internacionales del Directorio Democrático Cubano.