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Civil & Human Rights - Cuba

The Cuban government represses and punishes dissent and public criticism. Tactics against critics include beatings, public shaming, travel restrictions, short-term detention, fines, online harassment, surveillance, and termination of employment.

In October 2019, Miguel Díaz-Canel was confirmed as president of Cuba, with nearly 97 percent of the votes of National Assembly members. His presidency has seen little change in the government’s human rights policy. Arbitrary detention and harassment of critics continue. Under his government, Cuba has used Decree-Law 370/2018, which came into effect in July 2019 and severely limits free speech, to detain, fine, and harass critics.

Arbitrary Detention and Short-Term Imprisonment
The government continues to employ arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate critics, independent activists, political opponents, and others. From January through August 2020, there were 1,028 arbitrary detentions, according to the Cuban Human Rights Observatory, a Madrid-based human rights organization.

Security officers rarely present arrest warrants to justify detaining critics. In some cases, detainees are released after receiving official warnings, which prosecutors can use in subsequent criminal trials to show a pattern of “delinquent” behavior.

Detention or the threat of detention is often used to prevent people from participating in peaceful marches or meetings to discuss politics. Detainees are often beaten, threatened, and held incommunicado for hours or days. Police or state security agents routinely harass, rough up, and detain members of the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco)—a group founded by the wives, mothers, and daughters of political prisoners—before or after they attend Sunday mass.




Complete text: World Report 2021: Cuba | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)


Also:

Everything you need to know about human rights in Cuba 2020 - Amnesty International Amnesty International



Wherever Communism goes, oppression follows.

Cowardice Is the Crime That Enables All Others


Why did the summer protests in Cuba fizzle? There is no such thing as a land of the free that is not also a home of the brave. If the opposite of Red is yellow, the Cubans deserve what has happened to them.
 

God of War

Governor
About 1 in 4 Cuban-American immigrants do go back to Cuba to live. Many more live here because of the economy (made possible by the systematic exploitation of the third world).
Yes, they go back to in Cuba and collect American checks. They then get to live a life of luxury with the family they left behind.
 

Zam-Zam

Senator
Your link alleges:
Press censorship in Cuba. Certainly true, and largely unjustifiable. However, corrupt elites would have far less opportunity to justify their censorship if not for the state of siege the country faces.
Mass imprisonment, beatings, and executions in the 1960s. True. The government used slave labor in concentration camps, mostly by political and religious dissidents, sexual minorities, and criminals, to boost agricultural production thereby liberating peasants from toil and preventing large-scale famine while terrorizing opponents of the government. This practice was abandoned as communist leadership associated with Fidel Castro and Ricardo Alarcon edged out the Maoist clique associated with Che Guevara and Raul Castro. Fidel Castro has since apologized for his government’s role in these atrocities. The U.S. on the other hand still is torturing people in concentration camps.
Harvesting the blood of executed prisoners to sell to Vietnam (presumably to keep their soldiers alive): I’ve never heard this claim before and the link in your article returns a “page not found” error. But the bottom line is that there were fewer executions in Cuba since 1960, including all those who were killed in the concentration camps, than there were in the U.S. last year alone.
Killing of minors: Surely true, especially with the worst antigay persecutions in the late 1960s. Perhaps there were also minors among those killed for being Batista’s torturers in 1959-1960. I wonder, though, whether your propagandist counts as “extrajudicial killings under Castro” the Cuban youths lynched by U.S.-backed mercenaries for volunteering to teach peasants how to read. Also, as I’m sure you’re aware, the U.S. has judicially and extrajudicially killed hundreds of minors during the same time period.
Executing hundreds of Batista’s torturers: God damn right they did!
Concentration of arbitrary power in the hands of Fidel Castro and his allies in 1959-1976: Certainly, and this reflected on one hand the bureaucratic counterrevolution seeking to stifle socialist democracy, and on the other the popular will taking revolutionary dictatorial form. Your article soft pedals that through Castro’s socialist democratic reforms national elections were resumed starting in 1976.
Lack of citizen participation in drafting the Constitution: absurd. Not only was the Constitution approved by referendum, but it was widely discussed in every aspect in workplaces and through unions and mass organizations throughout Cuba.
Facing shortages during the “Special Period”: certainly. As many countries have at one time or another. But Cuba is the only one to have weathered such a severe challenge while not closing a single school or hospital and without allowing homelessness to return.
Pushing pro-capitalist measures and consolidation of government power through the 2019 constitution: absolutely, and there’s no defense for it. At the same time the constitution did have the broad support of the majority partly for its advancements in human rights guarantees.
“Arbitrary” imprisonment of the 75 “human rights activists”: nonsense. They were convicted on clear and convincing evidence of taking money from the CIA to help organize attempts to overthrow the government.
Executing the 3 hijackers: Cuba doesn’t like terrorism … sorry!
Muzzling dissent under recently passed “dangerousness” law and decree 349: true. This represents the offensive of the bureaucratic counterrevolution against Cuban communism.
Controlling jobs, wages, prices, and consumer goods: a government that will do that is what the Cuban people have fought for for 60 years. Hello?
Lowering educational standards: a monstrous lie.
Having shortages of medical equipment: due to the blockade, yes. How much more impressive the tremendous advance in health care (fudged or not, you don’t make up a ten-year increase in life expectancy out of thin air) over a system that was already world-class by semicolonial standards.
Forced labor of doctors: they’re volunteers who could easily defect if they wanted to.
It's obvious you've never set foot in Cuba.

Your post was hilarious, I'll give it that.
 

EatTheRich

President
Cowardice Is the Crime That Enables All Others


Why did the summer protests in Cuba fizzle? There is no such thing as a land of the free that is not also a home of the brave. If the opposite of Red is yellow, the Cubans deserve what has happened to them.
The protests didn’t “fizzle” so much as they were brutally repressed. Cuban workers were caught off guard because historically the Cuban government hasn’t repressed protests.
 

EatTheRich

President
It's obvious you've never set foot in Cuba.

Your post was hilarious, I'll give it that.
Why do you think the Communist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Black Panther Party, and Fair Play for Cuba Committee organized trips to Cuba so Americans could see what it was like for themselves, while the U.S. government used threats of imprisonment to keep Americans from seeing what Cuba was really like?
 

Zam-Zam

Senator
Why do you think the Communist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Black Panther Party, and Fair Play for Cuba Committee organized trips to Cuba so Americans could see what it was like for themselves, while the U.S. government used threats of imprisonment to keep Americans from seeing what Cuba was really like?
Don't know, don't care.

Why are you so anxious to shift the focus from communism's record of oppression and brutality?

Getting back on track:

Letters to the Editor: I fled communism in Cuba. Everyone there is oppressed, no matter their ethnicity

I fled communist Cuba, where all ethnicities are oppressed - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
 

EatTheRich

President
Video confirmation:

More Videos Filter Out Of Cuba Showing Brutal Repression

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – New videos surfaced Thursday showing brutal repression on demonstrators by the Cuban regime.

On Sunday, Cubans on the island took to the streets demanding freedom.



Complete text: More Videos Filter Out Of Cuba Showing Brutal Repression – CBS Miami (cbslocal.com)
Interesting that when in Cuba police use batons to strike people throwing stones and sticks at them, it’s “brutal repression,” but in the U.S. when police use guns to shoot people who have picked up no weapon, it’s an unremarkable, commonplace event.
 

Zam-Zam

Senator
Interesting that when in Cuba police use batons to strike people throwing stones and sticks at them, it’s “brutal repression,” but in the U.S. when police use guns to shoot people who have picked up no weapon, it’s an unremarkable, commonplace event.
Straight out of Pravda, no doubt.
 
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