WASHINGTON – The Cuba Study Group has condemned the Havana government's arrest of four labor activists featured in the documentary "Under Cuban Skies – Workers and Their Rights."
The activists "were unjustly detained, interrogated and harassed as a result of their participation" in the film, the Washington-based CSG said in a statement.
"These repressive tactics on independent labor activists expressing their opinions in the film is unjust and unwarranted," CSG executive director Tomas Bilbao said. "The Cuban government's actions serve as further evidence of its continued systematic violation of labor rights as shown in the documentary."
On Monday, Maria Elena Mir Marrero, Justo J. Sanchez, Hanoi Oliva and Daniel Sabatier were ordered to report the following day to the offices of the National Revolutionary Police in the Havana suburb of Guanabo.
Once in police custody, they were interrogated, "subjected to degrading treatment, and threatened prior to their release," the CSG said.
The CSG said the activists' participation in the documentary on working conditions in Cuba is seen as a challenge to the island's only legal union, a body controlled by the communist government.
"The interrogating agents threatened the activists to cease their activities or face further harassment and physical harm," the Cuba Study Group said.
The labor documentary was screened last month at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy.
Filmmaker Carlos Montaner says he made the documentary to highlight the "systematic violation of human and labor rights" in Cuba.
"It covers a not very well-known aspect of the situation of labor rights that is peculiarly different from most of the world because the government is the employment agency and the union represents the official party. There is no collective bargaining and many international agreements are being violated," he told Efe. EFE
Latin American Herald Tribune - Group Blasts Cuba for Arresting Participants in Documentary (9 August 2009)
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=340908&CategoryId=14510
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