Human rights in Cuba are under the scrutiny of Western human rights organizations, which accuse the
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
n government of committing systematic human rights abuses against the Cuban people, including
arbitrary imprisonment
Arbitrary arrest and arbitrary detention are the arrest or detention of an individual in a case in which there is no likelihood or evidence that they committed a crime against legal statute, or in which there has been no proper due process of ...
and unfair trials. International human rights organizations such as
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
and
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
have drawn attention to the actions of the human rights movement and designated members of it as
prisoners of conscience, such as
Óscar Elías Biscet. In addition, the
International Committee for Democracy in Cuba
The International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC) was created in September 2003 as "a response to the latest brutal crackdown by the Cuban government in the spring of that year against those pushing for democratic reforms, freedom of speech ...
led by former statesmen
Václav Havel
Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then as ...
of the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
,
José María Aznar
José María Alfredo Aznar López (; born 25 February 1953) is a Spanish politician who was the prime minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He led the People's Party (PP), the dominant centre-right political party in Spain.
A member of the Fre ...
of
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
and
Patricio Aylwin
Patricio Aylwin Azócar (; 26 November 1918 – 19 April 2016) was a Chilean politician from the Christian Democratic Party, lawyer, author, professor and former senator. He was the first president of Chile after dictator Augusto Pinochet, a ...
of
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
was created to support the "civic movement".
Concerns have been expressed about the operation of
due process
Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...
. According to Human Rights Watch, even though Cuba, officially
atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
until 1992, now "permits greater opportunities for religious expression than it did in past years, and has allowed several religious-run humanitarian groups to operate, the government still maintains tight control on religious institutions, affiliated groups, and individual believers".
Censorship in Cuba
Censorship in Cuba is the topic of accusations put forward by several foreign groups-organizations and political leaders. The accusations led the European Union to impose sanctions from 2003 to 2008 as well as statements of protest from groups, ...
has also been at the center of complaints.
According to the report of Human Rights Watch from 2017 the
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
continues to rely on arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate critics, independent activists,
political opponents, and others. This report added that the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and
National Reconciliation
National Reconciliation is the term used for establishment of so-called 'national unity' in countries beset with political problems. In Afghanistan the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan government under Babrak Karmal issued a ten-point rec ...
, an independent human rights group that lacks official authorization and is therefore considered illegal by the government, received more than 7,900 reports of arbitrary detentions from January through August 2016. This represents the highest monthly average of detentions in the past six years.
Amnesty International's 2017–2018 Annual Report also noted more
arbitrary detentions, discriminatory layoffs by state agencies and harassments in
self-employment
Self-employment is the state of working for oneself rather than an employer. Tax authorities will generally view a person as self-employed if the person chooses to be recognised as such or if the person is generating income for which a tax return n ...
with the aim of making them silent in criticism. Regarding any progress in
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, Amnesty International reported that advances in education were undermined by ongoing online and offline censorship. Cuba remained mostly closed to independent human rights monitors.
With regard to
arbitrary arrests and detentions, the report added that human rights activists and political activists continued to be
harassed,
intimidated and arbitrarily detained in high numbers. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a Cuban
NGO
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
which is not officially recognized by the state, recorded 5,155 arbitrary detentions in 2017, in contrast to 9,940 in 2016.
Cuba is a regional leader in women's rights issues.
History
During
Spanish colonization
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its History ...
, the oppression of the indigenous populations was chronicled at length by clergyman
Bartolomé de las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...
. The subsequent transportation of African slaves to the island, which lasted over 300 years, led to
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
military intervention and a determination "to put a stop to these abuses". Since Cuba achieved independence in 1902, successive Cuban governments have been criticised and condemned by various groups, both within Cuba and internationally, for human rights violations on the island. During the latter part of the Spanish colonial era in Cuba, human rights on the island became a particular international concern. After a visit to the region in 1898,
U.S. Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
Redfield Proctor
Redfield Proctor (June 1, 1831March 4, 1908) was a U.S. politician of the Republican Party. He served as the 37th governor of Vermont from 1878 to 1880, as Secretary of War from 1889 to 1891, and as a United States Senator for Vermont from 18 ...
estimated that up to 200,000 Cubans had died from starvation and disease within "
Spanish forts", essentially
concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
. The concern was a contributory factor in garnering support for the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (clock ...
in the U.S.
After independence, and following a sustained period of instability, the 1924–33 capitalist government of
Gerardo Machado
Gerardo Machado y Morales (28 September 1869 – 29 March 1939) was a general of the Cuban War of Independence and President of Cuba from 1925 to 1933.
Machado entered the presidency with widespread popularity and support from the major polit ...
proved to be authoritarian. Machado extended his rule until
Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...
led an uprising called the Revolt of the Sergeants, as part of a coup which deposed Machado in 1933. Batista then became the strongman behind a succession of puppet presidents until he was himself elected president in 1940. According to
Hugh Thomas, the post-Machado period was marked by violent reprisals, mass lynchings and a deterioration towards corruption and ''gansterismo'' throughout the island.
From 1940, Cuba had a multiparty electoral system until
Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...
(President from 1940–1944) staged a coup with military backing on March 10, 1952.
In 1958, ''Time'' magazine wrote: "Cuba's fanatic, poorly armed rebels last week tried to smash President Fulgencio Batista with the ultimate weapon of civilian revolutions: the general strike. ... Fulgencio Batista got ready for the strike by offering immunity to anyone who killed a striker and by threatening to jail any employer who closed shop." During the strike, militants and youths stole guns, and threw bombs (one of which may have set up a gas-mains fire), after which some people were killed in clashes.
The strike was short-lived: "With the upper hand, Batista drove boldly around the city while his cops proceeded to make their supremacy complete. When a patrol car radioed that it had clashed with rebels and had 'a dead man and a prisoner', the dispatcher ordered: 'Shoot him.' At midafternoon, cops burst into a boardinghouse, grabbed three young men who were leaders of Cuba's lay Catholic Action movement, which sympathizes with Castro. Two hours later their stripped,
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
d and bullet-torn bodies were turned over to relatives. Total dead: 43."
In 1959,
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
and his forces succeeded in displacing Batista from power. At that time there were fundamental changes in the judicial and political process. During this transitional period there were some concerns voiced about
due process
Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...
.
The "Cuban National Reconciliation movement", a U.S.-based organisation that claims to act as a forum for discussing Cuban society, has detailed what it believes are complex variables when analysing human rights immediately after the revolution. In the 1960s, violent confrontations known as the
Escambray Rebellion
The Escambray rebellion was an armed conflict from 1959 to 1965 in the Escambray Mountains during which several insurgent groups fought against the Cuban government led by Fidel Castro. The military operation against the rebellion was called the ...
between the Cuban government and armed opposition were ongoing, but had declined by the early 1970s. The group asserts that by the time international human rights movements flourished in the 1970s, the most severe period of repression was over, making non-partisan retrospective assessments of the period difficult. The reconciliation movement also cite the difficulties in assessing accounts of abuses that are commonly split upon partisan lines. According to the group,
Cuban exiles
The Cuban exodus is the mass emigration of Cubans from the island of Cuba after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Throughout the exodus millions of Cubans from diverse social positions within Cuban society became disillusioned with life in Cuba an ...
who were often the first to denounce the Cuban government, largely shared an anti-Communist ideology and overlooked violations committed by other regimes, whilst many left leaning observers did not give the claims of Cuban victims due consideration.
After coming to power in 1959, Fidel Castro's government built a highly effective machinery of
repression, according to Human Rights Watch.
As early as September 1959, Vadim Kotchergin (or Kochergin), a
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
agent, was seen in Cuba. Jorge Luis Vasquez, a Cuban who was imprisoned in
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, states that the East German secret police
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990.
The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...
trained the personnel of the
Cuban Interior Ministry (MININT).
Political executions
Various estimates have been made in order to ascertain the number of political executions which have been carried out on behalf of the Cuban government since the revolution. During the first two months of 1959, Castro's government executed more than 300 Batista officials,
with Latin American historian Thomas E. Skidmore says that there had been 550 executions in the first six months of 1959.
In an April 1961
UPI
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...
story, the agency stated that about "700 have died before Castro's firing squads" between 1959 and 1961. ''The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators'' ascertained that there had been 2,113 political executions between the years 1958–67,
while British historian
Hugh Thomas, stated in his study ''Cuba or the pursuit of freedom'' that "perhaps" 5,000 executions had taken place by 1970.
According to Amnesty International, the total number of death sentences issued from 1959–87 was 237, of which all but 21 were actually carried out. ''
The Black Book of Communism
''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression'' is a 1997 book by Stéphane Courtois, Andrzej Paczkowski, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Margolin, and several other European academics documenting a history of political repression by co ...
'' estimated that between 15,000 and 17,000 people were executed by the state. The anti-Castro Archivo Cuba estimates that 4,000 people were executed in Cuba between 1959 and 2016. It claims there have been 4,309 confirmed executions or extrajudicial killings since 1952; the actual death toll of the Cuban Revolution is estimated to be higher, but an exact count of victims is unavailable, given a lack of available records and political transparency in Cuba.
The vast majority of those executed directly following the 1959 revolution were policemen, politicians and informers for the Batista regime who were accused of crimes such as torture and murder, and their public trials and executions enjoyed widespread popular support among the Cuban population. Most scholars agree that those executed were probably guilty as charged, but their trials did not follow
due process
Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...
. The Cuban Government justified such measures on the grounds that in Cuba, the application of the death penalty against
war criminals and others followed the same procedure which had previously been followed by the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
during the
Nuremberg trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945 ...
. Some Cuban scholars maintain that if the government had not imposed severe legislation against the torturers,
terrorists
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
, and other criminals who had been employed by the Batista regime, the people themselves would have taken justice into their own hands.
Refugees
According to the US government, some 1,200,000 Cubans (about 10% of the current population) left the island for the United States between 1959 and 1993.
Alleged forced labor camps and abuse of prisoners
In 1987, a "Tribunal on Cuba" was held in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in order to present testimonies by former prisoners of
Cuba's penal system to the international media. The gathering was sponsored by a US-funded anti-communist group which was named
Resistance International
Resistance International was an international anti-communist organisation that existed between 1983 and 1988. It anticipated and embodied the so-called Reagan Doctrine which took final shape in 1985. Resistance International was set up in France in ...
and "The Coalition of Committees for the Rights of Man in Cuba". The testimonies which were presented at the tribunal, before an international panel, alleged that a pattern of
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
existed in Cuba's prisons and "hard labor camps". The torture consisted of beatings, biological experiments which included dietary restrictions, violent interrogations and extremely unsanitary living conditions. The jury concurred with allegations of arbitrary arrest; sentencing by court martial with no public audience or defender; periods of time which prisoners spent in hard labour camps without sufficient food, clothing or medical care; and the arrest of children who were over nine years old.
Political abuse of psychiatry
Although Cuba has been politically connected to the Soviet Union since the United States broke off relations with Cuba shortly after its prime minister
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
came to power in 1959, few considerable allegations regarding the
political abuse of psychiatry
Political abuse of psychiatry, also commonly referred to as punitive psychiatry, is the misuse of psychiatry, including diagnosis, detention, and treatment, for the purposes of obstructing the human rights of individuals and/or groups in a society ...
in that country emerged before the late 1980s.
Americas Watch
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
and
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
published reports which alluded to cases of possible unwarranted hospitalization and ill-treatment of political prisoners.
These reports concerned the Gustavo Machin hospital in
Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba is the second-largest city in Cuba and the capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province. It lies in the southeastern area of the island, some southeast of the Cuban capital of Havana.
The municipality extends over , and contains t ...
in the southeast of the country and the major mental hospital in
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. .
In 1977, a report on the alleged abuse of psychiatry in Cuba was published in the United States and it presented cases of ill-treatment in Cuban mental hospitals which dated back to the early 1970s.
It presents grave allegations which claim that prisoners who end up in the forensic wards of mental hospitals in Santiago de Cuba and Havana are subjected to methods of ill-treatment which include
electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatry, psychiatric treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage refractory mental disorders.Rudorfer, MV, Henry, ME, Sackeim, HA (2003)"Electroco ...
without the use of
muscle relaxant
A muscle relaxant is a drug that affects skeletal muscle function and decreases the muscle tone. It may be used to alleviate symptoms such as muscle spasms, pain, and hyperreflexia. The term "muscle relaxant" is used to refer to two major therapeu ...
s or
anaesthesia
Anesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prevention of pain), paralysis (muscle relaxation), am ...
.
The reported application of ECT in the forensic wards seems, at least in many of the cited cases, not to be an adequate clinical treatment for the diagnosed state of the prisoner—in some cases the prisoners do not seem to have been diagnosed at all.
Conditions in the forensic wards have been described in repulsive terms and they are apparently in striking contrast to the conditions in the other parts of the mental hospitals that are said to be well-kept and modern.
In August 1981, the Marxist historian Ariel Hidalgo was apprehended and accused of "incitement against the social order, international solidarity and the Socialist State" and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment.
In September 1981, he was transported from State Security Headquarters to the Carbó-Serviá (forensic) ward of the Havana Psychiatric Hospital and stayed there for several weeks.
Contemporary Cuba
Political repression
A 2009 report by
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
concluded that "Raúl Castro has kept Cuba's repressive machinery firmly in place...since being handed power by his brother Fidel Castro."
The report found that "
ores of political prisoners arrested under Fidel continue to languish in prison, and Raúl has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental rights."
US government-funded
Freedom House
Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...
classifies Cuba as being "Not Free",
and notes that "Cuba is the only country in the Americas that consistently makes Freedom House's list of the Worst of the Worst: the World's Most Repressive Societies for widespread abuses of
political rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
and
civil liberties
Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties may ...
."
The 2017 World Report by Human Rights Watch writes that independent
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
s who publish information considered critical of the
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
are subject to smear campaigns and arbitrary arrests, as are artists and academics who demand greater
freedoms
Political freedom (also known as political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Hannah Arendt, "What is Freedom?", ''Between Past and F ...
.
![Press conference, Havana](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Press_conference%2C_Havana.jpg)
A 1999 Human Rights Watch report notes that the Interior Ministry's principal responsibility is to monitor the Cuban population for signs of dissent.
In 1991 two new mechanisms for internal surveillance and control emerged. Communist Party leaders organized the Singular Systems of Vigilance and Protection (Sistema Unico de Vigilancia y Protección, SUVP). Rapid Action Brigades (Brigadas de Acción Rapida, also referred to as Rapid Response Brigades, or Brigadas de Respuesta Rápida) observe and control dissidents.
The government also "maintains academic and labor files (expedientes escolares y laborales) for each citizen, in which officials record actions or statements that may bear on the person's loyalty to the revolution. Before advancing to a new school or position, the individual's record must first be deemed acceptable".
The opposition movement in Cuba is a widespread collection of individuals and nongovernmental organizations, most of whom are working for the respect of
individual rights
Group rights, also known as collective rights, are rights held by a group ''wikt:qua, qua'' a group rather than individually by its members; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by Individuality, individual people; even if they are grou ...
on the island. Some of the best known Cuban members of the opposition include the
Ladies in White
Ladies in White ( es, italics=no, Damas de Blanco) is an opposition movement in Cuba founded in 2003 by wives and other female relatives of jailed dissidents and those who have been made to disappear by the government. The women protest the impri ...
(recipients of the
Sakharov Prize
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, commonly known as the Sakharov Prize, is an honorary award for individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought. Named after Russian scientis ...
for Freedom of Thought), Human Rights Center and Cuban community leader
Jesus Permuy
Jesús A. Permuy (born 1935) is a Cuban-American architect, urban planner, human rights activist, art collector, and businessman. He is known for an extensive career of community projects and initiatives in Florida, Washington, D.C., and Latin A ...
,
Marta Beatriz Roque
Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello (born May 16, 1945) is a Cuban political dissident. She is an economist by training, and the founder as well as director of the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists. Agence France-Presse described her in 2007 as Cu ...
, and
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...
nominee and
Sakharov Prize
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, commonly known as the Sakharov Prize, is an honorary award for individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought. Named after Russian scientis ...
winner
Oswaldo Payá
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas (29 February 1952 – 22 July 2012) was a Cuban political activist. A Roman Catholic, he founded the Christian Liberation Movement in 1987 to oppose the one-party rule of the Cuban Communist Party. He attracted int ...
, as well as
Óscar Elías Biscet, and
Jorge Luis García Pérez
Jorge Luis García Pérez (known as Antúnez, born 10 October 1964, Placetas, Cuba) is an Afro-Cuban human rights and democracy activist.
Dissident career
Antúnez was jailed for 17 years from 1990 to 2007. Other dissidents have referred to Antún ...
"Antúnez."
On October 18, 2019, the
U.S. Commerce Department
The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busin ...
announced that the United States will impose new
sanctions against
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
following its poor
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
records and its support of the Venezuelan government. In particular,
José Daniel Ferrer's continued detention was brought into notice in a different statement which was issued by the
U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
. Ferrer, who heads the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), has been kept in detention by the Cuban government and his whereabouts have not been revealed.
Censorship
Cuba officially adopted the civil and political rights enumerated in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...
in 1948. One of the key principles in the declaration was the insistence on
Freedom of expression and opinion. The
Cuban constitution
Even before attaining its independence from Spain, Cuba had several constitutions either proposed or adopted by insurgents as governing documents for territory they controlled during their war against Spain. Cuba has had several constitutions sin ...
says that free speech is allowed "in keeping with the objectives of socialist society" and that artistic creation is allowed "as long as its content is not contrary to the Revolution".
Cuba's ranking was on the bottom of the
Press Freedom Index
The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders since 2002 based upon the organisation's own assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year. It intends to ...
2008 compiled by the
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...
(RWB).
Cuba was named one of the ten most censored countries in the world by the
Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, New York, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journa ...
.
Books, newspapers, radio channels, television channels, movies and music are supposedly censored, although a lot of foreign media, particularly movies and music, have notably been heard and seen without any police interference.
According to American group
Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, New York, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journa ...
, the media in Cuba are operated under the supervision of the
Communist Party's ''Department of Revolutionary Orientation'', which "develops and coordinates propaganda strategies".
Human rights groups and international organizations believe that these articles subordinate the exercise of freedom of expression to the state. The
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme'', ...
assess that: "It is evident that the exercise of the right to freedom of expression under this article of the Constitution is governed by two fundamental determinants: on the one hand, the preservation and strengthening of the communist State; on the other, the need to muzzle any criticism of the group in power." Human rights group
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
assert that the universal state ownership of the media means that freedom of expression is restricted. Thus the exercise of the right to freedom of expression is restricted by the lack of means of mass communication falling outside state control.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
states: "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."
["Cuba"]
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
Yet, activists' networks like Eye on Cuba and Cubalog.eu have continued working with the intention to raise awareness about the true situation concerning human and civil rights on the "island of freedom" and appeal to Europe Union and its members to apply responsible approach to Cuba in their foreign policy. Financial support and legal representation is provided by foreign NGOs as part of the EU Cuba Network.
A formal structure and system of reporting news not approved by the government was first attempted in 1993.
The effort for an independent, uncensored news agency was spearheaded by Cuban human rights activist and then-President of Christian Democratic Movement
Jesus Permuy
Jesús A. Permuy (born 1935) is a Cuban-American architect, urban planner, human rights activist, art collector, and businessman. He is known for an extensive career of community projects and initiatives in Florida, Washington, D.C., and Latin A ...
.
It formally began in May of that year as Members of Civic Democratic Action, an umbrella group of nearly twenty Castro opposition organizations, formed an alliance with the Independent Cuban Journalists Association.
The effort ultimately failed.
A
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...
report as of October 2006 finds that Internet use is very restricted and under tight surveillance. Access is only possible with government permission and equipment is rationed. E-mail is monitored.
Foreign journalists are systematically expelled from Cuba, e.g. notable journalists of
Gazeta Wyborcza
''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the g ...
, Anna Bikont and Seweryn Blumsztahn, were expelled in 2005.
Restrictions on assembly
Human Rights Watch states that "
freedom of assembly
Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ide ...
is severely restricted in Cuba, and political dissidents are generally prohibited from meeting in large groups.
[ ]Amnesty
Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offici ...
states that "All human rights, civil and professional associations and unions that exist today in Cuba outside the officialdom of the state apparatus and mass organizations controlled by the government are barred from having legal status. This often puts at risk the individuals who belong to these associations of facing harassment, intimidation or criminal charges for activities which constitute the legitimate exercise of the fundamental freedoms of expression, association and assembly."
The Cuban authorities only recognize a single national trade union centre, the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), heavily controlled by the State and the Communist Party which appoints its leaders. Membership is compulsory for all workers. Before a worker can be hired, they must sign a contract in which they promise to support the Communist Party and everything it represents. The government explicitly prohibits independent trade unions, there is systematic harassment and detention of labor activists, and the leaders of attempted independent unions have been imprisoned. The right to strike is not recognized in law.
Society
In 2001 an attempt was made by Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and others from the Christian Liberation Movement, operating as the Varela Project
The Varela Project ( es, Proyecto Varela) is a project that was started in 1998 by Oswaldo Payá of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) and named after Felix Varela, a Cuban religious leader.
Many members were imprisoned during the Black Spr ...
, to have a national plebiscite
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
using provisions in the Constitution of Cuba
Even before attaining its independence from Spain, Cuba had several constitutions either proposed or adopted by insurgents as governing documents for territory they controlled during their war against Spain. Cuba has had several constitutions sin ...
which provided for citizen initiative. If accepted by the government and approved by public vote, the amendments would have established such things as freedom of association
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membe ...
, freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
, freedom of press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerci ...
, as well as starting private businesses. The petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication.
In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offici ...
was refused by the National Assembly and in response a referendum was held in support of socialism being a permanent fixture of the constitution, for which the government claimed 99% voter approval.
Another important project is the establishment of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society. The Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba is a coalition of 365 independent civil society groups with the stated aims of "forming a democratic culture", "developing a social movement", strengthening the Assembly's organization, communicating among groups to promote the civil society, using all available means to combat poverty and seeking the betterment of the community's life conditions, developing a true knowledge of Cuba's history, in all its dimensions: economic, social and political, undertaking activities and projects aimed at the protection and conservation of natural resources and the ecosystem, and promoting a true culture on labor rights. The Assembly had its first meeting in May 2005.
Capital punishment
Cuba placed a moratorium on the use of capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
in 1999. However, an exception was made when, in 2003, three members of a gang of ten were executed for a ferry hijacking. The hijackers were attempting to reach Florida, but ran out of fuel only halfway to their destination. After a two-day stand-off, the ferry was escorted by coast guard patrol boats back to a Cuban port, ostensibly to refuel; when hostages began jumping over the sides of the ship, however, the authorities subdued the hijackers and regained control. Four other men were given life sentences, and the remaining three women involved received 1-5 years in prison.
Acts of repudiation
Human rights groups including Amnesty International have long been critical of what the Cuban authorities have termed "Acts of repudiation" (''actos de repudio''). These acts occur when large groups of citizens verbally abuse, intimidate and sometimes physically assault and throw stones and other objects at the homes of Cubans who are considered counter-revolutionaries
A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revoluti ...
. Human rights groups suspect that these acts are often carried out in collusion with the security forces and sometimes involve the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution ( es, Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, links=no), or CDR, are a network of neighborhood committees across Cuba. The organizations, described as the "eyes and ears of the Revolution," exist to h ...
or the Rapid Response Brigades.
Notable prisoners of conscience
* In 1960, Armando Valladares
Armando Valladares Perez (born May 30, 1937) is a Cuban-American poet, diplomat and former political prisoner for his involvement in the Cuban dissident movement.
In 1960, he was arrested by the Cuban government for conflicting reasons; the Cub ...
was convicted on a charge of placing bombs in public places and was sentenced to thirty years in prison. He and his supporters contend that he was never part of the Batista police as alleged by Castro supporters, and that his imprisonment was the result of his vocal opposition to the Castro government. Valladares claims to have been tortured and humiliated while he was on a hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...
in order to protest against prison abuses; he claims the guards denied him water until he became delirious, and they proceeded to urinate in his mouth and on his face. Furthermore, he claimed to require the use of a wheelchair following his longest hunger strike. The Cuban government denied both claims, and provided video evidence to Regis Debray of Valladares standing and walking. Valladares was released from prison after serving twenty-two years of his sentence, due in part to the intercession of France's Socialist President François Mitterrand
François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was President of France, serving under that position from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, he ...
. Conservative author David Horowitz
David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer. He is a founder and president of the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website ''FrontPage Magazine''; and director of Disco ...
has since called Valladares a "Human Rights Hero."
* In 1973, gay writer Reinaldo Arenas
Reinaldo Arenas (July 16, 1943 – December 7, 1990) was a Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright known as a vocal critic of Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban government. His memoir of the Cuban dissident movement and of being a ...
was sent to prison after being charged and convicted of ' ideological deviation' and for publishing abroad to evade censorship in Cuba
Censorship in Cuba is the topic of accusations put forward by several foreign groups-organizations and political leaders. The accusations led the European Union to impose sanctions from 2003 to 2008 as well as statements of protest from groups, ...
. He escaped from prison and tried to leave Cuba by launching himself from the shore on a tire inner tube. The attempt failed and he was re-arrested near Lenin Park and imprisoned at the notorious El Morro Castle alongside murderers and rapists. After finally escaping from Cuba in the 1980 Mariel Boatlift
The Mariel boatlift () was a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between 15 April and 31 October 1980. The term "" (plural "Marielitos") is used to refer to these refugees in both Spanish and En ...
, Arenas described the horrors he endured under the Cuban government in his autobiography ''Antes que anochezca'' (1992), English translation ''Before Night Falls'' (1993).
* On August 28, 1998, a Havana court sentenced Reynaldo Alfaro García, a member of the Democratic Solidarity Party
The Democratic Solidarity Party (''Partido Solidaridad Democrática'') was a political liberal party in Cuba. Although changes to the Cuban constitution in 1992 decriminalized the right to form political parties other than the Communist Party of ...
, to three years in prison for "spreading enemy propaganda" and "rumour-mongering".
* Desi Mendoza, a Cuban doctor, was imprisoned for making statements criticizing Cuba's response to an epidemic
An epidemic (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time.
Epidemics ...
of dengue fever
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. Symptoms typically begin three to fourteen days after infection. These may include a high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characterist ...
in Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba is the second-largest city in Cuba and the capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province. It lies in the southeastern area of the island, some southeast of the Cuban capital of Havana.
The municipality extends over , and contains t ...
which he alleged had caused several deaths. Dr. Mendoza had previously been fired from his job in a Cuban hospital three years earlier for establishing an independent medical association. He was later released due to ill-health, subject to his leaving the country.
* Óscar Elías Biscet, a medical doctor, has been sentenced to jail for 25 years for his non-violent, but vocal opposition to Castro.
* In early 2003, dozens of persons, including independent journalists, librarians and other opponents of the Castro government were jailed after summary show trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...
s, with some sentences in excess of 20 years, on the charge of receiving money from the United States in order to carry out anti-government activities.
* An Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
report
CUBA: fundamental freedoms still under attack
from Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
calls for the "Cuban authorities to release all prisoners of conscience immediately and unconditionally" and to "revoke all legislation that restricts freedom of expression, assembly and association, and to put a halt to all actions to harass and intimidate dissidents, journalists, and human rights defender
A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campai ...
s".
* Jorge Luis García Pérez
Jorge Luis García Pérez (known as Antúnez, born 10 October 1964, Placetas, Cuba) is an Afro-Cuban human rights and democracy activist.
Dissident career
Antúnez was jailed for 17 years from 1990 to 2007. Other dissidents have referred to Antún ...
was reported to have been released from prison in April 2007 after serving his full sentence of 17 years and 34 days for having, at the age of 25, shouted slogans against Fidel Castro. García Antúnez was convicted of sabotage after authorities accused him of setting fire to sugar cane fields, sabotage, spreading "enemy propaganda", and being in illegal possession of a weapon.
* Dr. Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, whom Amnesty International had declared "a prisoner of conscience" and demanded that he be released "immediately and without conditions".
* On September 2, 2020, Article 19, Institute for War and Peace Reporting
The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) is an independent nonprofit organization that claims to train and provide publishing opportunities for professional and citizen journalists.
History
IWPR was founded in 1991 under the name Yugofax. ...
and Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
urged the Cuban government to immediately release prisoner of conscience and independent journalist, Roberto Quiñones Haces. Following the trial in August 2019 and he was sentenced to one-year imprisonment for resistance and disobedience concerning his work as an independent journalist.
Travel and emigration
As of January 14, 2013, all Cuban government-imposed travel restrictions and controls have been abolished. Since that date, any Cuban citizen, with a valid passport, can leave the country at will, without let or hindrance from the Cuban authorities. Visa requirements for Cuban citizens are administrative entry restrictions by the authorities of other states placed on citizens of Cuba. In 2014, Cuban citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 61 countries and territories, ranking the Cuban passport 69th in the world. Persons holding dual Spanish and Cuban citizenships are now allowed to travel freely, using their Spanish passport in lieu of a visa for countries normally requiring a visa for the Cuban passport. Moreover, ever since that date, the Cuban government extended the allowable time abroad from 11 to 24 months, allowing Cubans who return within the 24-month time frame to retain their status and benefits of "Cuban Resident of the Interior". Should the citizen remain out of Cuba for more than 24 months, then his status would change to "Cuban Resident of the Exterior" and he would lose his privileges within. By this change, there is no longer such a thing as "illegal" or "unauthorized" travel, and therefore persons who leave Cuba via unconventional means (boats etc.) are no longer violating Cuban law, and therefore not subject to detention or imprisonment.
Prior to January 13, 2013, Cuban citizens could not travel abroad, leave or return to Cuba without first obtaining official permission along with applying for a government issued passport and travel visa, which was often denied. Unauthorized travel abroad had sometimes resulted in criminal prosecution. It was common, in those days, that certain citizens who were authorized travel (primarily medical personnel and other professionals deemed essential to the country) were not permitted to take their children with them overseas. In the event that Cuban doctors defect to the United States when they are sent to a "mission" out of Cuba to any foreign country, any children left behind would not be allowed to join their defector parent for a minimum of ten years, even if they had received a foreign visa, and regardless of their age. Castro opposition leader Oswaldo Payá
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas (29 February 1952 – 22 July 2012) was a Cuban political activist. A Roman Catholic, he founded the Christian Liberation Movement in 1987 to oppose the one-party rule of the Cuban Communist Party. He attracted int ...
has been allowed to travel abroad to receive his Sakharov Prize
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, commonly known as the Sakharov Prize, is an honorary award for individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought. Named after Russian scientis ...
, but Ladies in White
Ladies in White ( es, italics=no, Damas de Blanco) is an opposition movement in Cuba founded in 2003 by wives and other female relatives of jailed dissidents and those who have been made to disappear by the government. The women protest the impri ...
was not.
From 1959 through 1993, some 1.2 million Cubans (about 10% of the current population) left the island for the United States, often by sea in small boats and fragile rafts. In the early years, a number of those who could claim dual Spanish-Cuban citizenship left for Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
. Over time a number of Cuban Jews
Jewish Cubans, Cuban Jews, or Cubans of Jewish heritage, have lived in the nation of Cuba for centuries. Some Cubans trace Jewish ancestry to ''Marranos'' (forced converts to Christianity) who came as colonists, though few of these practice Judais ...
were allowed to emigrate to Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
after quiet negotiations; the majority of the 10,000 or so Jews who were in Cuba in 1959 have left. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Cubans now reside in a diverse number of countries, some ending up in countries of the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
. A large number of Cubans live in Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
and Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
.
At times the exodus was tolerated by the Cuban government as a "release valve"; at other times the government has impeded it. Some Cubans left for economic reasons and some for political ones. Others emigrated by way of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, which is blocked on the Cuban (land) side by barbed-wired fences and land mines.
In 1995 the US government entered into an agreement with the Cuban government to resolve the emigration crisis that created the Mariel Boatlift
The Mariel boatlift () was a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between 15 April and 31 October 1980. The term "" (plural "Marielitos") is used to refer to these refugees in both Spanish and En ...
of 1980, when Castro opened the docks to anyone who wanted to leave. The result of the negotiations was an agreement under which the United States was required to issue 20,000 visas annually to Cuban emigrants. This quota is rarely filled; the Bush administration refused to comply with the act, issuing only 505 visas to Cubans in the first six months of 2003. It also blocked some Cubans who have visas.
On July 13, 1994, 72 Cubans attempted to leave the Island on a World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
era tugboat
A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, su ...
named the '' 13 de Marzo''. In an attempt by the Cuban Navy to stop the tugboat, patrol boats were sent out to intercept the tug. Crewmen and survivors reported that the interception vessels rammed the tugboat and sprayed its passengers with high-pressure fire hoses, sweeping many overboard.
The US Coast Guard reported that the interceptions in high seas have been characterized as violent confrontations with authorities and by the deaths of immigrants. According to the same authorities, the Cubans are taken to the US on speed boats by a network of criminals specialized in human trafficking, former drug traffickers, based in southern Florida which now find contraband of humans more lucrative than drugs. These criminals charge 8 to 12 thousand dollars per person, overcrowding the small vessels. The majority of those that attempt to emigrate are individuals that have relatives in the United States, others who do not qualify to be considered as legal immigrants in the US, or those who do not want to wait their turn in the annual quota, assigned under the migratory treaties for legal immigrants
Since November 1966, the Cuban Adjustment Act
The Cuban Adjustment Act (in Spanish, Ley de Ajuste Cubano), Public Law 89-732, is a United States federal law enacted on November 2, 1966. Passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, the law applies ...
provides automatic permanent residency for almost all Cubans arriving legally or illegally after one year and one day in the US. No immigrant from any other nation has this privilege. Controversy over this policy centers around the loss of Cuba's scientists, professionals, technicians and other skilled individuals, but it has also prompted concerns of a migratory crisis.
At the end of the 2005 fiscal year which ended September 30, the US Coast Guard Service reported having intercepted 2,712 Cubans at sea, more than double the 1,225 reported in 2004 The figure for 2005 is the third highest of Cubans intercepted in the Florida straights during the last 12 years. The highest had been reported in 1993 with 3,656 and 1994 when over 30,000 Cubans emigrated illegally due to the so-called migratory crisis between the two countries.
The 1994 and 1995 migratory accords signed between Havana and Washington, and which emerged due to the crisis in August 1994, are still in effect. These accords force the US to return all those intercepted at sea by US authorities to Cuba, except the cases in which political persecution can be proven to justify exile in the United States.
The accords were designed to discourage those who would consider emigrating illegally by sea but the Bush administration has not complied with Washington's part of the agreements. Although the Coast Guard says that only 2.5 percent of the Cubans intercepted are granted political asylum, the public understanding, the public perception in Cuba and among the Cuban community in Miami, is not the same. And since that is not the perception, more and more people continue to illegally leave the island by sea causing fatal consequences. According to studies carried out by Cuban experts on the island, it is estimated that at least 15 percent of those that attempt to cross the sea die before reaching the US.
However, figures of those fleeing other Latin American or Caribbean countries of origin compare similarly with those of Cuba. During the 2005 fiscal year, 3,612 Dominicans were picked up at high seas attempting to illegally reach the US (900 more than Cubans intercepted) and in 2004, 3,229 Haitians were also picked up (2,000 more than the 1,225 Cubans that fiscal year). The Brazilian daily ''O Globo'' published an article on illegal immigrants in the US, quoting official sources, pointing out that during the first semester of 2005, 27,396 Brazilians were stopped from illegally crossing US borders, an average of 4,556 per month and 152 a day. In 2004, a total of 1,160,000 foreigners, were stopped when attempting to illegally enter the US, 93 percent of them (close to 1,080,000) were Mexicans.
Education
Education in Cuba is free at all levels and led by the Ministry for Education. In 1961 the government nationalized all private educational institutions and introduced a state-directed education system.
Healthcare
The Cuban government operates on national health system and assumes full fiscal and administrative responsibility for the health care of its citizens. The government prohibits any private alternatives to the national health system. In 1976, Cuba's healthcare program was enshrined in Article 50 of the revised constitution which states, "Everyone has the right to health
The right to health is the economic, social, and cultural right to a universal minimum standard of health to which all individuals are entitled. The concept of a right to health has been enumerated in international agreements which include the U ...
protection and care". Healthcare in Cuba is also free.
However, there is no right to privacy, or a patient's informed consent, or the right to protest or sue a doctor or clinic for malpractice. Moreover, the patient does not have right to refuse treatment (for example, a Rastafarian
Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control ...
cannot refuse an amputation
Amputation is the removal of a limb by trauma, medical illness, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on indi ...
on grounds that his religion forbids it.) Many Cubans complain about politics in medical treatment and health care decision-making.
After spending nine months in Cuban clinics, right-wing anthropologist Katherine Hirschfeld wrote "My increased awareness of Cuba's criminalization of dissent raised a very provocative question: to what extent is the favorable international image of the Cuban health care system maintained by the state's practice of suppressing dissent and covertly intimidating or imprisoning would-be critics?"
Family doctors are expected to keep records of their patients' "political integration." Epidemiological surveillance has become juxtaposed with political surveillance.
Religious freedom
In the years following the Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cou ...
, the activities of the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
were severely limited and in 1961 all property held by religious organizations was confiscated without compensation. Hundreds of members of the clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
, including a bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
, were permanently expelled from the nation. The Cuban leadership was officially atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
until 1992 when the Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
agreed to allow religious followers to join the party. In 1998, Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
visited the island and was allowed to conduct large outdoor masses and
visas
Visa most commonly refers to:
*Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company
** Visa Debit card issued by the above company
** Visa Electron, a debit card
** Visa Plus, an interbank network
*Travel visa, a document that allows ...
were issued for nineteen foreign priests taking up residence in the country. In addition, other religious groups in Cuba such as the Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
ish community are now permitted to hold public services and to import religious materials and kosher
(also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...
food for Passover
Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday that celebrates the The Exodus, Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Ancient Egypt, Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew calendar, He ...
, as well as to receive rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
s and other religious visitors from abroad. In October 2008, Cuba marked the opening of a Russian Orthodox
Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most ...
Cathedral in Havana in a ceremony attended by Raúl Castro, Vice President Esteban Lazo Esteban () is a Spanish male given name, derived from Greek Στέφανος (Stéphanos) and related to the English names Steven and Stephen. Although in its original pronunciation the accent is on the penultimate syllable, English-speakers tend ...
, Parliament leader Ricardo Alarcón
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada (21 May 1937 – 30 April 2022) was a Cuban politician. He served as his country's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) for nearly 30 years and later served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to ...
, and other figures.["Raul Castro Attends Dedication of Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Havana". 20 Oct. 2008. Retrieved 14 Apr. 2009. ''Cuban News Agency''. ] The Cuban press noted that the cathedral was the first of its kind in Latin America.
Rights of women
Cuba is a regional front-runner in women's rights. With respect to reproductive rights, Cuban women have up to two years of maternity leave and free access to abortion.
Women head almost 50% of households in Cuba. Sixty percent of Cuban professionals are women. Cuban women also have high representation in the country, with women holding 48.9% of the parliamentary seats in the Cuban National Assembly
The National Assembly of People's Power ( es, Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular) is the unicameral parliament of the Republic of Cuba. It is currently composed of 605 representatives who are elected from multi-member electoral districts for a ...
.
Torture
In 2005 a group of culture personalities, including several Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
laureates, have signed an appeal on ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' in defense of Cuba, claiming that "the government of the US has no moral authority to elect itself as the judge over human rights in Cuba, where there has not been a single case of disappearance, torture or extrajudicial execution since 1959, and where despite the economic blockade, there are levels of health, education and culture that are internationally recognised." The appeal is signed, for example, by Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (born 26 November 1931) is an Argentine activist, community organizer, painter, writer and sculptor. He was the recipient of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to Argentina's last civil-military dictatorship (1 ...
, José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which heco ...
, Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado (; 26 June 1933 – 20 January 2014) was an Italian conductor who was one of the leading conductors of his generation. He served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony ...
, Manu Chao
Manu Chao (; born José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao on 21 June 1961) is a French-Spanish singer. He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Arabic, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Greek, and occasionally in other languages. Chao began his mus ...
, Walter Salles
Walter Moreira Salles Júnior (; born 12 April 1956) is a Brazilian filmmaker.
Early life
Salles was born on 12 April 1956 in Rio de Janeiro and attended the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. He is the son of Brazil ...
, Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognized as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writin ...
, Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanne ...
, Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali (; born 21 October 1943) is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the ''New Left Review'' and ''Sin Permiso'', and con ...
, Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
, Danny Glover
Danny Lebern Glover (; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the ''Lethal Weapon'' film series. He also had leading roles in his films include ...
, Ernesto Cardenal
Ernesto Cardenal Martínez (20 January 1925 – 1 March 2020) was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived for m ...
, Alice Walker
Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...
, Ramsey Clark
William Ramsey Clark (December 18, 1927 – April 9, 2021) was an American lawyer, activist, and federal government official. A progressive, New Frontier liberal, he occupied senior positions in the United States Department of Justice under Presi ...
and Danielle Mitterrand
Danielle Émilienne Isabelle Mitterrand (née Gouze; 29 October 1924 – 22 November 2011) was the wife of French President François Mitterrand, and president of the foundation France Libertés Fondation Danielle Mitterrand.[institutionalized racism
Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health ...]
in his book '' The Challenges of the Racial Problem in Cuba'' (). ''Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba'' discusses the racial politics
Racial politics or race politics is the use of race, as a human categorization or hierarchical identifier, in political discourse, campaigns, or within the societal and cultural climate created by such practice. The phenomenon can involve the a ...
prevalent in communist Cuba.
Enrique Patterson, writing in the ''Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...
'', describes race as a "social bomb" and he says, "If the Cuban government were to permit black Cubans to organize and raise their problems before uthoritiesnbsp;... totalitarianism would fall". Carlos Moore
Carlos Whitman Moore (August 13, 1906 – July 2, 1958) is a former Major League Baseball player. A right-handed pitcher, Moore had a listed weight of .
Moore's playing career in the majors spanned one month. He made his major league debut with ...
, who has authored extensively on the issue, says that "There is an unstated threat, blacks in Cuba know that whenever you raise race in Cuba, you go to jail. Therefore, the struggle in Cuba is different. There cannot be a civil rights movement. You will have instantly 10,000 black people dead". He says that a new generation of black Cubans are looking at politics in another way.
Jorge Luis García Pérez
Jorge Luis García Pérez (known as Antúnez, born 10 October 1964, Placetas, Cuba) is an Afro-Cuban human rights and democracy activist.
Dissident career
Antúnez was jailed for 17 years from 1990 to 2007. Other dissidents have referred to Antún ...
, a well-known Afro-Cuban human rights and democracy activist who was imprisoned for 17 years, in an interview with the Florida-based '' Directorio Democrático Cubano'' states "The authorities in my country have never tolerated that a black person oppose the revolution. During the trial, the color of my skin aggravated the situation. Later when I was mistreated in prison by guards, they always referred to me as being black".
Despite these barriers however, Cuba has oftentimes been praised for advances of the Cuban Revolution in the areas of racial equality. During his leadership, Castro abolished segregation in businesses and public spaces while also ushering in egalitarian reforms in areas such as employment, wages, social security, and education. The proportion of high school graduates was actually higher among blacks than among whites in Cuba, whereas the opposite was true in both Brazil and the United States. In the area of life expectancy, The life expectancy of nonwhite Cubans was only one year lower
than that of whites; life expectancy was basically identical for all racial groups. A powerful indicator of social wellbeing, linked to access to health services (as reflected, particularly, in infant mortality), nutrition and education, the Cuban race gap in life expectancy was significantly lower than those found in more affluent multiracial societies such as Brazil (about 6.7 years) and the United States (about 6.3 years) during the same period..Because of these social reforms the Afro Cuban population is the healthiest longest living black population in the world. In the area of national leadership the vestiges of the pre revolutionary era are still visible when it comes to the question of colour, with Afro Cubans having yet to achieve parity when it comes to representation. Nevertheless, reforms have been introduced since in the 1970s when Castro "worked to increase the number of Afro-Cuban political representatives, with the percentage of Black members on the Council of State expanding from 12.9% in 1976 to 25.8% by 2003".
Black Spring
In March 2003, the government of Cuba arrested dozens of people (including self-identified journalists and human rights activist
A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campai ...
s), and charged them with sedition
Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, estab ...
due to their alleged cooperation with James Cason
James Caldwell Cason (born November 14, 1944) is a retired United States Foreign Service officer, most recently serving as Ambassador to Paraguay, a post he held from 2006 to 2008. Prior to that post, he was the Principal Officer of the US Intere ...
, head of the United States Interests Section in Havana
The United States Interests Section of the Embassy of Switzerland in Havana, Cuba or USINT Havana (the State Department telegraphic address) represented United States interests in Cuba from September 1, 1977, to July 20, 2015. It was staffed by ...
. The accused were tried and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 to 28 years. In all, 75 people were given lengthy sentences averaging 17 years each. Among those sentenced were Raúl Rivero
Raúl Ramón Rivero Castañeda (23 November 1945 – 6 November 2021) was a Cuban poet, journalist, and dissident.
Early life and career
Rivero was born on 23 November 1945 in Morón, Camagüey, in central Cuba.
In his youth, he was an ard ...
, Marta Beatriz Roque
Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello (born May 16, 1945) is a Cuban political dissident. She is an economist by training, and the founder as well as director of the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists. Agence France-Presse described her in 2007 as Cu ...
, and Oscar Elías Biscet. Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
described the trials as "hasty and manifestly unfair."
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque denied these accusations and responded: "Cuba has the right to defend itself and apply punishment just like other nations do, like the United States punishes those who cooperate with a foreign power to inflict damage on their people and territory."
During the trial, evidence was presented that the defendants had received funds from the U.S. Interests Section. Cuban officials claim that the goal of this funding was to undermine the Cuban state, disrupt internal order, and damage the Cuban economy. For his part, Cason denies offering funds to anyone in Cuba.
On November 29, 2004, the Cuban government released three of those arrested in the March 2003: Oscar Espinosa Chepe
Óscar Manuel Espinosa Chepe (November 29, 1940 – September 23, 2013) was a Cuban economist and dissident. He was one of approximately 75 dissidents arrested, tried and convicted in 2003 as part of a crackdown by the Cuban government nicknamed ...
, Marcelo López, and Margarito Broche. The action followed a meeting between the Spanish ambassador and Cuba's foreign minister. In subsequent days four more dissidents were released: Raúl Rivero
Raúl Ramón Rivero Castañeda (23 November 1945 – 6 November 2021) was a Cuban poet, journalist, and dissident.
Early life and career
Rivero was born on 23 November 1945 in Morón, Camagüey, in central Cuba.
In his youth, he was an ard ...
, Osvaldo Alfonso Valdés, Edel José García and Jorge Olivera. Seven other prisoners had previously been released for health reasons.
LGBT rights in Cuba
The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in Cuba have evolved significantly over time, from intolerance in pre- and post-revolutionary Cuba to what are now some of the most progressive LGBT policies in Latin America.
Discrimination
Thousands of homosexual
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
s, Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
, conscientious objectors, and dissidents were forced to conduct their compulsory military service in the 1960s at UMAP camps, where they were subject to political " reeducation". Military commanders brutalized the inmates. Carlos Alberto Montaner says "Camps of forced labour were instituted with all speed to "correct" such deviations ... Verbal and physical mistreatment, shaved heads, work from dawn to dusk, hammocks, dirt floors, scarce food ... The camps became increasingly crowded as the methods of arrest became more expedient".
In the late 1960s, because of "revolutionary social hygiene", the Castro government claimed to cleanse the arts of "fraudulent sodomitic" writers and "sick effeminate" dancers. Additionally, men with long hair were locked up and their hair was cut.
Castro is reported to once have asserted that, "in the country ide there are no homosexuals", before claiming in 1992 that homosexuality is a "natural human tendency that must simply be respected".[''Gay Rights and Wrongs in Cuba,''](_blank)
, Peter Tatchell (2002), published in the "Gay and Lesbian Humanist", Spring 2002. An earlier version was published in a slightly edited form a
in The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
, Friday Review, 8 June 2001. Another source reports Castro as having denounced "maricones" (" faggots") as "agents of imperialism". Castro has also reportedly asserted that "homosexuals should not be allowed in positions where they are able to exert influence upon young people".
21st century reforms
Cuba has made reforms in the 21st century, particularly via the successful 2022 Family Code referendum.
In 2003, Carlos Sanchez of the International Lesbian and Gay Association
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) is an organization who is committed to advancing human rights to all people, disregarding gender identity, sex characteristics and expression. ILGA participates in a ...
issued a report on the status of gay people in Cuba which claimed that the Cuban government no longer imposes any legal punishments on its gay citizens, that there is a greater level of tolerance among Cubans for gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and that the Cuban government was open to endorsing a gay and lesbian rights plank at the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
. Since 2005 sex reassignment surgeries for transgender individuals are free under law, and are paid for by the government. Also Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. now has a "lively and vibrant" gay and lesbian scene.
In a 2010 interview with Mexican newspaper ''La Jornada'', the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba ( es, Primer Secretario del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba) is the ''de facto'' leader of Cuba. The First Secretary is the highest office within the Commu ...
, Fidel Castro, called the persecution of homosexuals whilst he was in power "a great injustice, great injustice!" Taking responsibility for the persecution, he said, "If anyone is responsible, it's me ... We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death. In those moments I was not able to deal with that matter f homosexuals I found myself immersed, principally, in the Crisis of October, in the war, in policy questions." Castro personally believed that the negative treatment of gays in Cuba arose out of the country's pre-revolutionary attitudes toward homosexuality.
Mariela Castro
Mariela Castro Espín (born 27 July 1962) is the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana, as well as the National Commission for Comprehensive Attention to Transsexual People, and an activist for LGBT rights in Cuba. Ca ...
, daughter of Communist Party First Secretary Raúl Castro
Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz (; ; born 3 June 1931) is a retired Cuban politician and general who served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the one-party communist state, from 2011 to 2021, succeedi ...
, has been pushing for lesbian rights with the pro-lesbian government sponsored Cuban National Center for Sexual Education which she leads. Mariela has stated her father fully supports her initiatives, saying that her father has overcome his initial homophobia to support his daughter.
The passage of the 2022 Family Code referendum legalized same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex parents. Cuba now has one of the most progressive stances on LGBT rights of among Latin American countries.
United Nations Human Rights Commission
Cuban human rights have been repeatedly discussed and debated in the United Nations Human Rights Commission
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of t ...
since the Cuban Revolution. It would become a recurring flashpoint in the backdrop of international dynamic during the Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
and into the years following.
The organized and sustained international effort launched by prominent Cuban dissident groups (e.g. Miami's Center for Human Rights,[Sam Verdeja, Guillermo Martinez, ]
Cubans, an Epic Journey: The Struggle of Exiles for Truth and Freedom
' (2012). p. 241, . UNIDAD Cubana, Christian Democratic Party of Cuba
The Christian Democratic Party of Cuba ( es, Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba, abbreviated ''PDC'') is a Christian Democratic political party in Cuba affiliated with the Centrist Democrat International (SpanishInternacional Demócrata de Cent ...
, and others) and affiliated NGOs
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
(such as Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
) made their way to the UNHRC and would become a growing presence in Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
. These groups sometimes represented a spectrum of different Cuban interests, such as religious liberty
Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...
(e.g. Christian-Democrat
Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism.
It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...
movements, parties, and organizations) and education (e.g. the International Association of Educators for World Peace), that coalesced around the issue of human rights. An influential force credited with crafting and spearheading the international Cuban human rights effort, particularly in the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
, was activist and Cuban community leader Jesus Permuy
Jesús A. Permuy (born 1935) is a Cuban-American architect, urban planner, human rights activist, art collector, and businessman. He is known for an extensive career of community projects and initiatives in Florida, Washington, D.C., and Latin A ...
. The Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.[Christian-Democrat
Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism.
It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...]
ic governments to withhold international support until governmental changes were made to address human rights abuses. Though the coalition's NGO-driven human rights effort for Cuba initially struggled to gain traction in the UNHRC, their influence gradually grew, especially as key groups secured Consultative Status which significantly expanded their resources and exposure there. A significant turning point in these efforts came in 1984 when Permuy's Miami-based Center for Human Rights successfully lobbied to have Cuba's diplomatic representative, Luis Sola Vila, removed from a key subcommittee of the United Nations Human Rights Commission and replaced with a representative from Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, a Christian-Democratic ally in opposition of the Castro government. Another key moment came in 1987 when US President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
appointed Armando Valladares
Armando Valladares Perez (born May 30, 1937) is a Cuban-American poet, diplomat and former political prisoner for his involvement in the Cuban dissident movement.
In 1960, he was arrested by the Cuban government for conflicting reasons; the Cub ...
, former Cuban political prisoner of 22 years, as the US Ambassador to the Commission. By 1992, there had been a substantial change in Geneva as the UNHRC representatives had shifted from initial rejection, then indifference and towards embrace of the anti-Castro Cuban human rights movement's diplomatic efforts.
Since 1990, the United States itself has presented various resolutions to the annual UN Human Rights Commission
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of t ...
criticizing Cuba's human rights record. The proposals and subsequent diplomatic disagreements have been described as a "nearly annual ritual".[U.N. panel condemns Cuba for rights abuses](_blank)
Miami Herald April 19, 2001 Long-term consensus between Latin American nations has not emerged.[Cuba, the U.N. Human Rights Commission and the OAS Race](_blank)
Council on Hemispheric Affairs The resolutions were passed 1990–1997, but were rejected in 1998. Subsequent efforts by the U.S. have succeeded by narrow voting margins. In the Americas, some governments back the criticism, others oppose it, seeing it as a cynical manipulation of a serious human rights issue in order to promote the isolation of the island and to justify the decades-old embargo. European Union nations have universally voted against Cuba since 1990, though requests that the resolution should contain references to the negative effects of the economic embargo have been made.
Miami Herald 2000
Cuban human rights groups
*
Cuban Democratic Directorate (Directorio) The Cuban Democratic Directorate (Directorio Democrático Cubano) is a nongovernmental organization that supports the human rights movement in Cuba.
The Directorio's aims are to support for freedom, democracy and human rights in Cuba by way of no ...
*
Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba
*
International Committee for Democracy in Cuba
The International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC) was created in September 2003 as "a response to the latest brutal crackdown by the Cuban government in the spring of that year against those pushing for democratic reforms, freedom of speech ...
*
Cuban Liberty Council
*
Cuban dissidents
The Cuban dissident movement is a political movement in Cuba whose aim is to replace the current government with a liberal democracy. According to Human Rights Watch, the Cuban government represses nearly all forms of political dissent.
Backgrou ...
*
Ladies in White
Ladies in White ( es, italics=no, Damas de Blanco) is an opposition movement in Cuba founded in 2003 by wives and other female relatives of jailed dissidents and those who have been made to disappear by the government. The women protest the impri ...
See also
*
Disability in Cuba
There are around 447,600 people with disability in Cuba. A large number of Disability, people with disabilities in Cuba have an intellectual disability and about 3.2 percent have a severe disability. The Politics of Cuba, government of Cuba has a ...
*
Guantanamo Bay detention camp
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...
*
Sebastian Arcos Bergnes
Sebastian Arcos Bergnes (1931 – December 22, 1997, New York City) was a Cuban human rights activist. A prominent Cuban dissident, he was openly adversarial to the dictatorships of Fidel Castro and Fulgencio Batista.
Role in Cuban Revolution
A ...
*
Darsi Ferrer Ramírez
*
Cuban political prisoners hunger strike of 2010
Dissidents in Cuba have staged many hunger strikes - but the hunger strikes of 2010 had a significant impact, in part, because one protester died while in prison and another was near death. The negative worldwide publicity caused by the hunger str ...
References
External links
*
Cubaon
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
{{Cuba topics
Law of Cuba
Society of Cuba
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...