Cuban Human Rights Violations
March 7, 2010
According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), one of the main issues preventing normalization of US-Cuba relations is human rights violations by the Cuban government. On cfr.org, it says, “In March 2003, the Cuban government arrested seventy-five dissidents and journalists, sentencing them to prison terms of up to twenty-eight years on charges of conspiring with the United States to overthrow the state.” The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation also reports that the Cuban government has “resorted to other tactics besides prison -such as firings from state jobs and intimidation on the street- to silence opposition figures”.
The Cuban government has violated human rights in a variety of ways. Some of these violations are carried out against opposition figures that are considered to be a threat to the Castro regime. In a 2008 Cuba report, the U.S Department of State concluded that Cuba had at least 205 political prisoners and detainees. The Department of State goes on to say, “As many as 5,000 citizens served sentences for ‘dangerousness,’ without being charged with any specific crime.” The Department of State also listed all of the human rights violations in Cuba.
Among those listed are:
-beatings and abuse of prisoners and detainees
-harsh and life-threatening prison conditions
-denial of fair trial
-severe limitations on freedom of speech and press
-denial of peaceful assembly and association
-restrictions on freedom of movement
-restrictions on freedom of religion
-arbitrary arrest of human rights advocates
As the list shows, the Cuban people are being denied human rights from their government in a variety of ways. The question is: Should the United States government open trade and diplomatic relations with a country whose government violates the very rights that our country was founded on?
Sources: http://www.cfr.org/publication/11113/uscuba_relations.html
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/wha/119155.htm
Your knowledge of U.S./ Cuban relations impresses me. Let’s meet up for coffee sometime at Lula’s cafe.
Sounds like a plan. Can I call you Mario? Mario, just give me a date and a time and we can talk Cuba at Lula’s. It’s one of my favorite places to go(Lula’s that is, I’ve never been to Cuba).
Does any other nation participate in an embargo against Cuba?
From my research, I can’t find that any other country participates in an embargo against Cuba. In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the embargo for the 18th year in a row. The vote to condemn the U.S. embargo was 187-3. As I stated in one of my earlier posts, our allies in the international community do not support our embargo.
Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/28/un.cuba.vote/index.html