Category Archives: Human Rights

Human Rights

U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay could become immigration detention center

U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay could become immigration detention center

Author:  | internet@granma.cu

january 30, 2025 09:01:46

Once again, because of a White House decision, there will be a hell for prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Photo: CNN

“In an act of brutality, the new U.S. government announces the imprisonment, at the Guantánamo Naval Base, located in illegally occupied Cuban territory, of thousands of migrants that it is forcibly expelling, who will be placed next to the well-known prisons of torture and illegal detention”.
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, wrote in X after learning that the Guantánamo Naval Base – which, in addition to being illegal, harbors unimaginable torture and violations of all kinds against human rights – will now also be a detention center for some 30,000 immigrants, as announced by President Donald Trump.
Although none of his controversial decisions have caused too much astonishment (coming from where they come from), it is still outrageous that he now intends to turn the territory -which, as the whole world knows, does not belong to them- into part of his strategy to remove from the United States thousands of people who have set foot in that country in search of the so-called American dream.
At the signing ceremony of the Laken Riley Act, Trump spoke about an executive order for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the facility for such purposes, without elaborating too much on the procedure by which the transfer will be executed.
Since his ascension, for the second time, to the presidential chair, the multimillionaire, known for his discriminatory anti-immigrant behavior, has taken the harshest measures in favor of a “cleansing”, which will have terrible consequences, even for unborn children.
In the midst of this context, the new announcement comes to light, which once again puts the Guantánamo Naval Base in the spotlight of international opinion. Many horrors have been committed there, from the kidnapping and murder of Cuban citizens, to serving as a crime and torture laboratory, under the justification of the war against terrorism. So far, the attempts, announcements and promises to close the prison located on the base have remained only in words and, evidently, it will not be now that they will do it.
What is certain is that, under the political-electoral pretext of a “cleansing of illegal people who have invaded the soil that does not belong to them”, the champions of “freedom and human rights” have found a way out of the crisis they are creating for themselves, by transferring thousands of their deportees to that corner of Cuban land that the U.S. has usurped, in its shameless condition as an “illegal foreign government that has invaded the soil that does not belong to it”.

Human Rights

The United States on human rights, with what morals?

The attribution that the U.S. government has given itself is so absurd that it does not even seem that they themselves believe the lies and manipulations that, using the subject, they want to apply against other countries

Author:  | internet@granma.cu

april 24, 2024 11:04:29

Photo: Satire of Moro 

Perhaps one day, when there is no longer a U.S. veto in the UN Security Council, and when the organization itself demands morality and example from those who have set out to judge the inhabitants of planet Earth, the issue of human rights will cease to be an instrument used by the Empire to justify its own violations.
The U.S. government has given itself such an absurd attribution that it does not even seem that they themselves believe the lies and manipulations that, using the subject, they want to apply against other countries.
On Monday, when Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented the U.S. State Department’s annual report on human rights, he displayed his imperial ego and went to the extreme of calling on the discredited OAS to “demand that Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba respect human rights”. This is a recycled argument, devoid of any real content, and a pretext for macabre inventions such as placing Cuba on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
This gentleman has forgotten that none of these three Latin American nations has financed or armed the Zionist regime of Israel to commit genocide against the Palestinian population.
In fact, Blinken was the first “special envoy” to arrive in Tel Aviv when Benjamin Netanyahu’s government began massacring the Palestinians 200 days ago, and he declared that “the United States supports Israel in its fight against Gaza”, where, by the way, more than 34,000 Palestinians have already died, including almost 15,000 children.
Nor are Cuba, Nicaragua or Venezuela funding the war in Ukraine, where more than half a million Kiev soldiers have been killed or wounded. There, human rights are daily flouted by the West, and Washington has turned this war into a big business for its military complex. Neither Venezuela, nor Nicaragua, nor Cuba sanction another country, much less bet on the “suffocation” of a people, as the United States has been doing against Cuba for more than 60 years.
In his report in X, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla wrote: “The US Secretary of State is not concerned about the human rights of the Cuban people, which he is violating with measures of suffocation and extreme blockade, or those of the massacred Palestinian people. He is concerned about the rights of arms producers and their objectives of domination and plunder”.

Human Rights

Díaz-Canel welcomes Cuba’s election to the Human Rights Council

The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel thanked on Tuesday the election of our country to the Human Rights Council (HRC), for the sixth. time

Author:  | internet@granma.cu

october 11, 2023 10:10:01

Havana, October 10 (Web Network)– The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel thanked on Tuesday the election of our country to the Human Rights Council (HRC), for the sixth. time
In his account on X (formerly Twitter), the dignitary acknowledged “the support of those who have shown their confidence in our commitment to continue defending the legitimate interests of developing nations”.
In another message on that social network, Díaz-Canel emphasized that Cuba has earned a place in that United Nations organization “by practicing solidarity, cooperation, respect for the dignity and the right of all the peoples of the world to live in peace”.
Likewise, the head of state pointed out that Cuba has worked tirelessly to fulfill Marti’s yearning that “the First Law of the Republic is the cult of Cubans to the full dignity” of women and men, the elderly and children.
A place earned by practicing solidarity, cooperation, respect for dignity and the right of all peoples of the world to live in peace. #PatriaEsHumanidad pic.twitter.com/qQOU6kGzra
Refers a note published on the Foreign Ministry’s website that by the secret, direct and individual vote of 146 member states of the United Nations General Assembly, Cuba was the country with the highest number of votes in the region.
It adds that this election ratifies the recognition of the international community to the significant advances in the enjoyment of all human rights for all people. (Sources: @DiazCanelB and CubaMinrex)

CUBA, Human Rights

Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, at the Human Rights Council, Geneva, 2/28/23

 

Cuba’s voice will continue to be raised with a universal vision from the South
Speech by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, at the High-level Segment of the 52nd Session of the Human Rights Council, Geneva, 28 February 2023

Author: Radio Habana Cuba | internet@granma.cu

March 9, 2023 07:03:16


Mr. President:

Far from encouraging the construction of a more united and cooperative world, inequalities, poverty, hunger and exclusion are multiplying. A tiny minority enjoys the exponential increase of its wealth, while the vast majorities struggle for survival.

Current patterns of production and consumption are irrational and unsustainable and threaten the existence of the human species.

It is essential to fight for a just, democratic and equitable international order centered on the human being, on the peoples of the world.

The promotion and protection of human rights is a common ideal. No country is exempt from the challenges, and none has the authority to consider itself a paradigm in the matter, to judge others, and much less, to politicize and use them to stigmatize sovereign states and economic-social projects that do not conform to the designs of the masters of finance, markets and weapons.

The imperialist attempts to turn this Human Rights Council into a tribunal against countries that do not subordinate themselves to the geopolitical interests of powerful governments erode the credibility of this body and would seem to be trying to take it back to the ways of the defunct Commission on Human Rights, which imploded precisely because of those practices.

Cuba, as a founding member State of the Human Rights Council, defends respectful and constructive dialogue and international cooperation.

We advocate the full exercise of and respect for the principles of universality, indivisibility, objectivity and non-selectivity in the treatment of the subject.

In this spirit, we present our candidacy for re-election as a member of the Human Rights Council, for the period 2024-2026, in the elections to be held next October. We thank in advance the confidence of all those countries that have already given us their valuable support.

Cuba’s voice will continue to be raised with a universal vision but from the South, in favor of the legitimate interests of developing countries, the poor, the neglected and excluded, from constructive engagement, responsible dialogue and the unwavering responsibility for the full realization of human rights for all.

Mr. President:

The U.S. government applies a genocidal policy of blockade, intensified in the extreme and of “maximum pressure”, which has subjected the Cuban economy to extraordinary tensions that impact on the deterioration of consumption and the standard of living of families, on inflation, prices, salaries, availability of food and medicines, and on the electric service; and hits the country’s income, financial transactions, industry, construction, services, trade, investment, health and education.

The infamous and unfounded inclusion of Cuba in the State Department’s arbitrary list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism further aggravates the difficult situation caused by the blockade and has devastating effects on our financial system.

U.S. imperialism finances destabilization and “regime change” operations, slander against Cuban international medical cooperation, and smear campaigns; it uses powerful toxic technological platforms and encourages censorship and manipulation of large digital networks against Cuba.

This illegal policy deliberately stimulates emigration, especially of qualified people of active working age.

Cuba rises every day facing these attacks, joining efforts, innovating, with an unlimited capacity for resistance and creativity; and advances in the inclusive debate, democratic participation, particularly of young people; and the fruitful and renewing change of “everything that must be changed”.

We continue with firm and irreversible steps to perfect the socialist state of law and social justice, and our socialist model of cultural, social and economic development, with the broad majority and active support of the Cuban people.

We are deeply grateful for the international solidarity and cooperation that Cuba receives from all corners of the world.

Mr. President:

In a free and universal referendum in 2019, we adopted a new Constitution with the secret vote of 87% of the citizens that strengthens the guarantees and the legal-institutional framework for the protection and promotion of human rights for all Cubans.

We implemented the National Program for the Advancement of Women, the Comprehensive Strategy for the Prevention and Attention to Gender Violence and in the Family Scenario; the National Program against Racism and Racial Discrimination, and the new Family Code, approved by referendum with 62% support.

Mr. President:

We will act from the high responsibility assumed with the Presidency of the Group of 77 plus China in 2023, convinced that a better world is possible, if we listen to the voice of our peoples, work for their benefit and defend with courage and close unity the collective and just interests of the South.

Thank you very much.