On July 11, 2021, thousands of people in Cuba spontaneously took to the streets, in dozens of cities, to protest, in numbers not seen for decades. People participated in the protests demanding a change in living conditions in Cuba.
The protests responded not only to the shortage of food, personal hygiene items and medicines, the constant blackouts and lack of electricity, but also to the restrictive measures that the government had taken to address the spread of covid-19, as well as the State repression, which, as organizations point out, has violated freedom of expression and peaceful assembly for decades.
Two years after that emblematic date, a group of organizations issued a statement asking both the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) “to demand that the authorities of that country guarantee the right to protest and release people deprived of liberty for demanding their rights”.
The statement is signed by Civil Rights Defenders, Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race and Equality), Artists At Risk Connection (ARC) – PEN America, Democuba: Democratic Institute for Development in Cuba, Network of Leaders of Cuba – RELLIC, Justice 11J, Cubalex Article 19 Office for Mexico and Central America, International PEN, CADAL, Observatory of Academic Freedom (OLA), Observatory of Cultural Rights (ODC) and 4Métrica.
“The response of the authorities, during and after the demonstrations, has been to repress those who demonstrate through arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, internet cuts, forced exile, criminalization, physical and digital surveillance, threats, imposition of fines, summary trials and ordinary without guarantees of due process, etc.”, the statement stated.
The number of prisoners is not known with precision. The organizations Justicia 11J and Cubalex have documented at least 1,484 arrests.
“The signatory organizations warn with concern that the repressive practices of the Cuban government against all those who are perceived as dissidents continue, and that defending rights in Cuba today continues to be a high-risk activity,” the organizations’ statement read. .
Thus, the organizations urgently request the member states of the European Union and CELAC to consider putting human rights violations in Cuba on the agenda and respond proportionally to the magnitude of the crisis the country is experiencing. “.
Among the different requests expressed in the letter is “promote through all possible mechanisms to guarantee the human right to political participation in conditions of equality, in accordance with article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” , as well as “to urge the Government of Cuba to put an end to the excessive and unjustified use of force and arbitrary arrests during the protests, and to refrain from cutting off the Internet that hinder the right to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression and access at the information”.
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