Cuba: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2006

Cuba: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2006

Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. February
28, 2005.

Cuba remains a Latin American anomaly: an undemocratic government that
represses nearly all forms of political dissent. President Fidel Castro,
now in his forty-seventh year in power, shows no willingness to consider
even minor reforms. Instead, his government continues to enforce
political conformity using criminal prosecutions, long- and short-term
detentions, mob harassment, police warnings, surveillance, house
arrests, travel restrictions, and politically-motivated dismissals from
employment. The end result is that Cubans are systematically denied
basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy,
movement, and due process of law.

Legal and Institutional Failings
Cuba's legal and institutional structures are at the root of rights
violations. Although in theory the different branches of government have
separate and defined areas of authority, in practice the executive
retains clear control over all levers of power. The courts, which lack
independence, undermine the right to fair trial by severely restricting
the right to a defense.

Cuba's Criminal Code provides the legal basis for repression of dissent.
Laws criminalizing enemy propaganda, the spreading of "unauthorized
news," and insult to patriotic symbols are used to restrict freedom of
speech under the guise of protecting state security. The government also
imprisons or orders the surveillance of individuals who have committed
no illegal act, relying upon provisions that penalize "dangerousness"
(estado peligroso) and allow for "official warning" (advertencia oficial).

Political Imprisonment
In early July 2005 the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation, a respected local human rights group, issued a list of
306 prisoners who it said were incarcerated for political reasons. The
list included the names of thirteen peaceful dissidents who had been
arrested and detained in the first half of 2005, of whom eleven were
being held on charges of "dangerousness."

Of seventy-five political dissidents, independent journalists, and human
rights advocates who were summarily tried in April 2003, sixty-one
remain imprisoned. Serving sentences that average nearly twenty years,
the incarcerated dissidents endure poor conditions and punitive
treatment in prison. Although several of them suffer from serious health
problems, the Cuban government had not, as of November 2005, granted any
of them humanitarian release from prison.

On July 13, 2005, protestors commemorated the deadly 1994 sinking of a
tugboat that was packed with people seeking to flee Cuba. The protestors
marched to the Malecón, along Havana's coastline, and threw flowers into
the sea. More than two dozen people were arrested. Less that two weeks
later, on July 22, another thirty people were arrested during a rally in
front of the French Embassy in Havana. While the majority of those
arrested during the two demonstrations have since been released, at
least ten of them remain incarcerated at this writing.

Travel Restrictions and Family Separations
The Cuban government forbids the country's citizens from leaving or
returning to Cuba without first obtaining official permission, which is
often denied. Unauthorized travel can result in criminal prosecution.
The government also frequently bars citizens engaged in authorized
travel from taking their children with them overseas, essentially
holding the children hostage to guarantee the parents' return. Given the
widespread fear of forced family separation, these travel restrictions
provide the Cuban government with a powerful tool for punishing
defectors and silencing critics.

Freedom of Assembly
Freedom of assembly is severely restricted in Cuba, and political
dissidents are generally prohibited from meeting in large groups. In
late May 2005, however, nearly two hundred dissidents attended a rare
mass meeting in Havana. Its organizers deemed the meeting a success,
even though some prominent dissidents refused to take part in it because
of disagreements over strategy and positions. While barring some foreign
observers from attending, police allowed the two-day event to take place
without major hindrance. The participants passed a resolution calling
for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners.

Prison Conditions
Prisoners are generally kept in poor and abusive conditions, often in
overcrowded cells. They typically lose weight during incarceration, and
some receive inadequate medical care. Some also endure physical and
sexual abuse, typically by other inmates with the acquiescence of guards.

Political prisoners who denounce poor conditions of imprisonment or who
otherwise fail to observe prison rules are frequently punished by long
periods in punitive isolation cells, restrictions on visits, or denial
of medical treatment. Some political prisoners carried out long hunger
strikes to protest abusive conditions and mistreatment by guards.

Death Penalty
Under Cuban law the death penalty exists for a broad range of crimes.
Because Cuba does not release information regarding its use of the
penalty, it is difficult to ascertain the frequency with which it is
employed. As far as is known, however, no executions have been carried
out since April 2003.

Human Rights Defenders
Refusing to recognize human rights monitoring as a legitimate activity,
the government denies legal status to local human rights groups.
Individuals who belong to these groups face systematic harassment, with
the government putting up obstacles to impede them from documenting
human rights conditions. In addition, international human rights groups
such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are barred from
sending fact-finding missions to Cuba. It remains one of the few
countries in the world to deny the International Committee of the Red
Cross access to its prisons.

Key International Actors
At its sixty-first session in April, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights
voted twenty-one to seventeen (with fifteen abstentions) to adopt a
blandly-worded resolution on the situation of human rights in Cuba. The
resolution, put forward by the United States and co-sponsored by the
European Union, simply extended for another year the mandate of the U.N.
expert on Cuba. The Cuban government continues to bar the U.N. expert
from visiting the country, even though her 2005 report on Cuba's human
rights conditions was inexplicably and unjustifiably mild.

The U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, in effect for more than four decades,
continues to impose indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban people and to
block travel to the island. An exception to the embargo that allows food
sales to Cuba on a cash-only basis, however, has led to substantial
trade between the two countries. Indeed, in November 2005, the head of
Cuba's food importing agency confirmed that the U.S. was Cuba's biggest
food supplier. That same month the U.N. General Assembly voted to urge
the U.S. to end the embargo.

In an effort to deprive the Cuban government of funding, the U.S.
government enacted new restrictions on family-related travel to Cuba in
June 2004. Under these rules, individuals are allowed to visit relatives
in Cuba only once every three years, and only if the relatives fit the
government's narrow definition of family-a definition that excludes
aunts, uncles, cousins, and other next-of-kin who are often integral
members of Cuban families. Justified as a means of promoting freedom in
Cuba, the new travel policies undermine the freedom of movement of
hundreds of thousands of Cubans and Cuban Americans, and inflict
profound harm on Cuban families.

Countries within the E.U. continue to disagree regarding the best
approach toward Cuba. In January 2005, the E.U. decided temporarily to
suspend the diplomatic sanctions that it had adopted in the wake of the
Cuban government's 2003 crackdown against dissidents, and in June it
extended the sanctions' suspension for another year. Dissidents
criticized the E.U.'s revised position, which Spain had advocated, and
which the Czech Republic, most notably, had resisted.

Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco), a group of wives and mothers of
imprisoned dissidents, were among three winners of the prestigious
Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought for 2005. The prize is granted
annually by the European Parliament in recognition of a recipient's work
in protecting human rights, promoting democracy and international
cooperation, and upholding the rule of law. As of this writing, it was
not clear whether the Cuban government would allow representatives of
Ladies in White to travel to France in December 2005 to receive the prize.

Relations between Cuba and the Czech Republic continue to be strained.
In May 2005, Cuba summarily expelled Czech senator Karel Schwarzenberg,
who was visiting Havana to attend the dissidents' two-day meeting. On
October 28, on the eighty-seventh anniversary of the establishment of
independent Czechoslovakia, the Cuban authorities banned a reception
that the Czech Embassy was planning to hold in Havana, calling it a
"counter-revolutionary action." The Cubans were reportedly angered by
the embassy's decision to invite representatives of Ladies in White to
attend the function.

Venezuela remains Cuba's closest ally in Latin America. President Castro
and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez enjoy warm relations, and Venezuela
provides Cuba with oil subsidies and other forms of assistance.

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