Text: Cuba News 360 Newsroom
The US State Department released its 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on Tuesday, highlighting the critical situation in Cuba in this regard.
Referring specifically to the events on the island on July 11, 2021, during which more than 700 people were detained, the text reads in the foreword: “The reports paint a clear picture of where human rights and democracy are threatened. They highlight where governments have unjustly imprisoned, tortured or even killed political opponents, activists, human rights defenders or journalists, including in Russia, the PRC, the DPRK, Nicaragua and Syria. They document human rights abuses by peaceful protesters demanding democracy and basic freedoms in countries like Burma, Belarus, Cuba, Hong Kong and Sudan.”
The US has conducted country reports on human rights practices for nearly five decades, and this year’s reports cover 198 countries and territories. The one relating to Cuba is 46 pages in length divided into seven sections covering various issues such as labor rights, civil and political liberties, human integrity, discrimination and the government’s position regarding independent investigations of human rights violations.
In the island’s case, the text ensures that key human rights issues include credible reports on: “unlawful or arbitrary executions, including extrajudicial executions, by the government; enforced disappearances by the government; torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of political dissidents, detainees and prisoners by the security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrests and detentions; Political prisoner”.
In its introductory part, the report deals with some problems of everyday Cuban life, such as “lack of independence of the judiciary, arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, restrictions on freedom of expression and access to the Internet, violence against journalists, censorship, and criminal defamation laws, used against people who criticize the governance”, among others.
Later, in the first paragraph, entitled “Respect for the integrity of the person,” the text accuses the island’s government and its agents of “arbitrary or illegal homicides,” citing as an example the killing of young Diubis Laurencio Tejeda during protests last July in the La Güinera neighborhood in Havana.
The report also denounces that “government officials have committed most human rights abuses on orders from their superiors. For reasons of policy, officials did not investigate or prosecute those who committed these abuses. Impunity for the perpetrators remained widespread, as did impunity for official corruption.
In addition, the State Department mentioned the case of activist Laura Pollán, leader of the Cuban opposition movement Ladies in White, who died in 2011 under “suspicious circumstances”.
The report refers to torture and cruel treatment, alluding to the fact that agents and security forces “harassed, intimidated and physically assaulted human rights defenders and pro-democracy advocates, political dissidents and peaceful demonstrators, and that they did so with impunity”.
He also denounced that “some detainees and prisoners were subjected to physical and sexual abuse by prison officials or other inmates at the instigation of the guards. Although the law prohibits coercion during preliminary interrogations, police and security forces sometimes used aggressive and physically abusive tactics, threats, and harassment during interrogations.”
After learning about the 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denounced on his Twitter account that “human rights are a useful tool for the United States, which it uses opportunistically to attack non-subordinate countries while it is.” Rewarded and funded by governments with terrible human rights records.”
Human rights are a useful tool for the United States, which it uses opportunistically to attack countries not subordinate to it while rewarding and funding governments with terrible human rights records.
— Bruno Rodriguez P (@BrunoRguezP) April 13, 2022
According to a statement from the Cuban state agency Prensa Latina, the Cuban foreign minister also stated that “the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States constitutes the main violation of the guarantees of the island’s inhabitants” and also expressed: “that the document manipulates the issue.” to undermine the constitutional order of the nation.”
For her part, U.S. Deputy Director of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs Johana Tablada described “as discrediting the U.S. government’s implementation of fraudulent policies that squander millions in a large-scale disinformation campaign against Cuba, its people, health care system and legitimate sources of income,” according to Prensa latina