Report - Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation

3 June 2014

The government of Cuba reached during last May one of the highest figures in recent decades in the number of political arrests. In that month, our Commission was able to verify at least 1120 arrests of peaceful dissidents.

Between 6 and 10 of the detainees were not released, and were sent under accusations to high-security prisons. We are confident that the actual numbers are even higher, since we are subjected to the most secretive regime throughout the Western Hemisphere, and it is impossible to document all cases of political repression, let alone all systematic repression against the whole society.

The Government of Cuba, which has entered its 56th year of iron-handed power, continues to criminalize the exercise of all civil and political rights and other fundamental rights.

Last month we documented an increase in repressive violence against citizens who dare to disagree publicly. As an example, we mention, among many others, the case of journalist Guillermo Fariñas, Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament, who has been arrested every Monday of the last 19 weeks and subjected each time to the procedure of torture by artificial hypothermia, in addition to beatings and abuse. To top it off, this Saturday, May 31, around midnight, he was virtually death threatened in the presence of witnesses, by a high officer of the secret political police of the Interior Ministry .

The signals that the Cuban Government is issuing are grim about the possibility that they would respect, at least in the short term, international standards on human Rights, and comply fully with the Constitution and other relevant National Laws.

Last Update 3 June