Human Rights Watch criticizes UN High Commissioner Bachelet for her silence on Cuba

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) for the Americas José Miguel Vivanco reproached Michelle Bachelet for her office’s silence regarding the serious events committed by the Cuban dictatorship to repress its population, which called on citizens to confront protesters, has claimed the life of at least one person while a hundred are either detained or missing.

“Bachelet has not denounced the human rights violations in Cuba since she became the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Will she break her silence now that the Cuban government is repressing the largest protests in the country in decades?” Vivanco asked on Twitter where he denounces the kidnappings conducted by the regime led by Miguel Diaz-Canel since last Sunday when the population took to the streets to protest against the violations of their freedoms, the sharp deterioration of food supply and the health crisis.

The leader of the NGO, dedicated to denounce the violence of both regimes and democratic governments, said that so far over 150 people have been arrested due to the protests on the island. “The initial lists of detainees in protests in Cuba exceed 150, and the whereabouts of many of them are unknown. We demand an end to these human rights violations. Protesting is a right, not a crime.”

Other NGOs

More than 40 organizations and media outlets on Tuesday (13) condemned the “repression by the Cuban government” against the protests of recent days and made an “urgent” appeal for the right to demonstrate and freedom of expression to be respected.

In a manifesto signed by a total of 44 organizations and media, they denounced that in reaction to the protests, “elements of the National Revolutionary Police, the Riot Squads, and the State Security Department conducted arbitrary arrests and physical attacks against people who were peacefully demonstrating.”

In fact, the Cuban Interior Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that a man was killed in a demonstration held on Monday in the low-income neighborhood of Güinera, on the outskirts of Cuban capital Havana, as part of the protests.

The body “laments the death of this person,” according to a note published by the official Cuban News Agency, which said that the death occurred when Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, 36, was taking part in the “riots.”

Cuba is undergoing a deep health, economic and political crisis, they assure, which has led citizens to complain against the government in the streets for the “lack of individual freedoms, the insufficiency of medical services to tackle the pandemic, the devastation to family economies caused by the monetary system, food shortages, power cuts and the recurrent violence of the security forces against any expression of discontent by the population.”

In this context, they have also denounced the security devices installed in the homes of different journalists and activists, a “practice that Cuban authorities have previously adopted as an intimidation tactic.”

In addition, they criticize the call of president Miguel Díaz-Canel to “supporters of the ruling party to take to the streets to confront those who protested,” in what they considered a “clear incitement to violence.”

The organizations explained in the letter that they have been registering “the growing social unrest due to the lack of openness to dialogue, the punitive spirit of the Cuban authorities in their interaction with citizens and the constant harassment towards civil society and independent media.”

For all these reasons, they call on the Government to “refrain from continuing to violate the right to criticize, to incite conflict and violence among people with divergent views to the official position,” and to guarantee “the integrity of people who legitimately exercise their right to demonstrate.”

Source: Infobae