Prisoners Defenders evaluates European Union report on human rights in Cuba

The organization defending Human RightsCuban Prisoners Defenders (PD) issued adeclaration in which it evaluates the Annual Report of the European Union (EU) on human rights and democracy in the world corresponding to 2019, which was presented on June 17 and in which a chapter is dedicated to the situation in Cuba.

PD praises that under the current presidency of the Spanish Josep Borrell, the European bloc has improved its definition of the island – in 2016, under the mandate of Federica Mogherini, Cuba was described as a “single-party democracy.” However, he assures that the EU omits amply proven facts, which is why its report suggests a desire “not to upset the Castro government too much.”

In its statement, Prisoners Defenders assessed the positive aspects, omissions and misrepresentations of the European Union report.

One of the successes is that the EU considers it necessary to inform the regime that it has not made progress in terms of human rights, which is essential to avoid a setback in relations.

Another achievement of the group of countries was to denounce that during the constitutional referendum process carried out on the island in 2019, supporters of voting NO or abstention were removed from the public debate and discredited by the authorities.

However, the EU did not elaborate on the cases of people who "suffered assaults and raids on their homes, arrests, beatings and other fabricated judicial cases to eliminate their message from any stronghold where they could communicate it, or even forced expatriation, as was the case." the case of Eliécer Góngora Izaguirre, who was forcibly introduced by Cuban agents onto an Aruba Airlines plane to Guyana, something that the United Nations was able to corroborate…”, states PD.

“All sources that actively monitor human rights in Cuba endorse this range of violations,” he adds.

Regarding the Communist Party of Cuba, the only legal one on the island, Prisoners Defenders reproaches the European Union for not describing it as “a supra-Constitutional entity.”

“That complement would have been key to understanding that not only is it a single party, but that it is not in the hands of the sovereign people. Nor does the EU report say anything that the Constitution itself indicates that the instituted system is 'irrevocable', which eliminates any hint that the sovereignty of the nation rests with the people, by not granting this mechanism any mechanism to make changes. ”, he details.

“Nor did he make any note that the vote on the Constitution was the most negative vote that a proposal from the regime has ever received since 1959, with almost two and a half million voters who did not vote in favor, despite the conditions of campaign and counting,” he adds.

Another very serious mistake of the EU is to mix economic rights with social rights and see them as an achievement.

“Social achievements, whatever they may be, are always worth mentioning (…). But mixing the social sphere with the economic sphere is a very serious error in the writing of said report, since economic and labor rights and freedoms as well, closely related to the former, are precisely some of the most eroded rights and freedoms in Cuba. for decades, one of the reasons that keeps the country in a state of misery,” says PD.

Regarding the EU's monitoring of violations of freedom of association, peaceful assembly and freedom of expression on the island, Prisoners Defenders reproaches it for not having made a single statement of concern about the situation of these rights for several years, including the 2019.

“The EU Delegation in Cuba has not even had contact with the Sakharov Prizes in the last 12 months, at least, and has only had a single telephone call withJosé Daniel Ferrer, for giving a case where the European Parliament has turned, many weeks after he was released, and not on the Delegation's own initiative,” he points out.

“Given the inequalities present in Cuba, inequality due to discrimination and persecution for reasons of conscience is logically the most serious, since it affects races, sexes and ages equally. The lukewarm and controlled actions of the Delegation of the European Union focusing on the issue of equality on the issue of gender or race, represent nothing more than having comfortable conversations where they avoid dealing with the most relevant discrimination of the human being, that of thought, and Therefore, it is a smokescreen where what prevails are fluid relations with the regime to obtain third benefits or political factors, whether regional or local,” he denounces.

In its annual report on human rights on the island, theEuropean Union showed “concern about the intensification of repression in Cuba” and for the continuity of the hegemonic and exclusive character of the Communist Party, according to a source close to the socialist Josep Borrell, head of European diplomacy.

“Perhaps Havana thought that the coronavirus epidemic would cause a relaxation in our vigilance of respect for the fundamental rights of Cubans, but we cannot fail to express our discomfort with the numerous arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of several prisoners of conscience,” he stressed. the diplomat

The official also criticized the “working and salary conditions of the doctors sent to work abroad and the non-ratification of the International Conventions on civil and political rights, and on economic, social and cultural rights,” which has been pending since 2008. .