Freedom House's 2021 annual report titled "Democracy Under Siege" marks 15 years of a deepening democratic recession that in 2021 should be called a depression.
As a lethal pandemic, economic and physical insecurity, and violent conflict ravaged the world in 2020, democracy’s defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny. Incumbent leaders increasingly used force to crush opponents and settle scores, sometimes in the name of public health, while beleaguered activists—lacking effective international support—faced heavy jail sentences, torture, or murder in many settings. These withering blows marked the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The countries experiencing deterioration outnumbered those with improvements by the largest margin recorded since the negative trend began in 2006. The long democratic recession is deepening.
However, it is not only democracy that is suffering, but so are human rights, and part of the problem is that people, who should know better, made small moral compromises with gross human rights violators in the belief that it would advance human rights. They achieved the opposite result. The late Czech president, dissident, and playwright, Václav Havel, addressing the Forum 2000 in Prague on October 12, 2009 gave an equivalent example of this practice on the world stage:
"I believe that when the new Laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize postpones receiving the Dalai Lama until after he has accomplished his visit to China, he makes a small compromise, a compromise which actually has some logic to it. However, there arises a question as to whether those large, serious compromises do not have their origin and roots in precisely these tiny and very often more or less logical compromises."
This observation can be applied to the establishment of the UN Human Rights Council on March 15, 2006. Fifteen years ago the United Nations Human Rights Council was founded on a small moral compromise that sacrificed human rights oversight in Belarus and Cuba in what U.N. officials called the dawn of a new era. Special rapporteurs with mandates to specifically monitor the human rights situation in those two countries were formally gotten rid of in 2007 and a code of conduct established that undermined the independence of all special rapporteurs.
Three years earlier beginning on March 18, 2003 the Cuban dictatorship rounded up 75 opposition activists, independent journalists and human rights defenders and sentenced them to prison sentences ranging up to 25 years in prison for their nonviolent dissent. On April 2, 2003 three young black men were arrested, tried and executed by firing squad nine days later on April 11, 2003 for trying to flee the island in a hijacked ferry, in which no one had been physically harmed. This drew worldwide condemnation at the time, and became known as Cuba's Black Spring, but it did not prevent the end of the mandate for monitoring human rights violations in Cuba.
Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac executed for trying to flee Cuba in 2003
Ending oversight of Belarus and Cuba not only left the victims of these dictatorships exposed to more repression, with impunity by their oppressors, but emboldened these dictatorships not only to worsen their practices at home but to undermine human rights abroad. Worse yet, both would be elected to serve on the UN Human Rights Council with other outlaw regimes.
Hillel Neuer of UN Watch marking the 15th anniversary of the UN Human Rights Council asked some difficult, but needed questions. He pointed out that the UN Human Rights Council had been created "under the promise that the new and improved version would address 'gross and systematic violations of human rights,' and ensure 'universality, objectivity, non-selectivity, and the elimination of double standards.' He then asks: "Madam President, fifteen years later, where do we stand? Has the UN kept its promise?" Hillel than follows up with some facts that lay bare the state of the Human Rights Council in 2021:
"Let’s take a look. In this session, there is one agenda item on the entire world, 193 countries, and then a separate agenda item that targets one country alone: Israel. No other UN member state is singled out. There is no agenda item on Iran, which massacres its own people for protesting; no agenda item on Russia, which poisons dissidents; no agenda item on Cuba, which throws artists into prison; and no agenda item on China, which herded 1 million Uighur Muslims into camps, persecutes Christians, disappeared courageous men and women who sounded the alarm on the coronavirus, and extinguished freedom in Hong Kong. On the contrary, China, Russia and Cuba were just elected as members of this Council. Madam President, is this objectivity?"
These failings have real world consequences.
Cuba led the charge to back up China's new security law for Hong Kong that strips citizens of Hong Kong of their human rights last year. On July 1, 2020 the Cuban dictatorship introduced a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council praising China for passing the Hong Kong National Security Law, also known as 66 article law. 53 governments backed this resolution, endorsing the death of a free Hong Kong. Official Chinese media "celebrated" their victory at the human rights body. Belarus has also continued to back the new security law at international forums.
The Chinese Communist Party in a secretive legislative process circumvented Hong Kong's sovereignty and imposed this new law a day earlier on June 30, 2020, the 23rd anniversary of the British handover of Hong Kong. This action is a breach of the agreement made with the British. Professor Johannes Chan, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong in a BBC news report explained that "effectively, they are imposing the People's Republic of China's criminal system onto the Hong Kong common law system, leaving them with complete discretion to decide who should fall into which system." Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, in an interview with the BBC put it more succinctly, "It spells the death knell for Hong Kong."
In spite of Cuba's terrible human rights record at home, and leading the charge to back China stripping Hong Kongers of their rights the Castro regime was re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council on October 12, 2020 with 170 out of a possible 192 votes at the General Assembly.
This did not improve their behavior.
"Cuba, speaking on behalf of 64 countries including China [on March 12, 2021], said Xinjiang is 'an inseparable part of China' and urged states to 'stop interfering in China’s internal affairs by manipulating Xinjiang-related issues, (and) refrain from making unfounded allegations against China out of political motivations'." These countries led by the Castro regime are defending an ongoing genocide.
Uigher men in Xinjiang Re-education Camp Lop in 2018
China's suppression of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang meets the United Nations definition of genocide because "suppression of birth" falls under one of "the five criteria set forth by the United Nations Convention for the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide from 1948." 1.5 million Uighurs are in internment camps and according to Adrian Zen at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation there is evidence of forced sterilization and rape of women sent to these facilities.
"Stories that are among the most harrowing, of course, are stories of abuse, stories of women being caught up by the police and, as they're being brought to the internment camp, the first thing is that they're told, you're going to go on the surgery table, and we're going to put an intrauterine contraceptive device into your body, because that's standard policy for women who are put into a camp. Other women report of forced sterilization, of abuse, even accounts of rape."
Canada's House of Commons on February 22, 2021 voted overwhelmingly (266 to 0) to declare China's treatment of its Uighur minority population a genocide. The Dutch parliament recognized on February 25, 2021 that the treatment of the "Uighur Muslim minority in China amounts to genocide" following their Canadian counterparts. The United States has also recognized that what is taking place in Xinjiang rises to the level of crimes against humanity and genocide.
Meanwhile on March 11, 2021 Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders called on Cuba to stop intimidating and detaining human rights defenders working for racial justice in the country. Ms. Lawlor’s call was endorsed by: Ms. Dominique Day (chairperson), Mr. Ahmed Reid, Mr. Michal Balcerzak, Mr. Sabelo Gumedze, Mr. Ricardo A. Sunga III Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Mr. Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur on the rights to peaceful assembly and of association.
The International Service for Human Rights, on March 4, 2021 released the statement "In Cuba, reading poems can land you in jail" with a two minute video of the "activist and academic Anamely Ramos, member of the San Isidro Movement of artists," speaking "out about the threats and attacks carried out against cultural defenders in Cuba."
We look forward to the day when the small moral compromises that betray human rights defenders working for racial justice in Cuba, or Cuban artists seeking to read their poems without fear of beatings or prison are not betrayed by those making moral compromises on the failed premise that the ends justify the means. Looking the other way on human rights violations in Cuba has now led to a defense of genocide by a UN Human Rights Council member. This is also another example of why both human rights and democracy have been in decline globally for the past 15 years.
Elyssa Koren , Director of United Nations Advocacy, ADF International wrote in Newsweek on March 8, 2021 that "Cuba Being on the UN Human Rights Council Is a Travesty" and she is right.
Is it mere coincidence that the UN Human Rights Council came into existence 15 years ago in a morally compromised manner, and that human rights and freedom have been in decline for the same period of time?
UNWatch, March 15, 2021
UN Human Rights Council Marks 15th Anniversary Since Promised ‘Elimination of Double Standards’
UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer delivered the following testimony at the UNHRC’s current 46th Session, in which delegates are participating by remote video.
Madam President,
Fifteen years ago today, in a historic vote, the United Nations abolished its Commission on Human Rights, a body that had named Col. Qaddafi’s Libya as its Chair, and which had become so discredited, that even Secretary-General Kofi Annan said it was “casting a shadow on the reputation of the UN as a whole.”
In its place, they created this Human Rights Council, under the promise that the new and improved version would address “gross and systematic violations of human rights,” and ensure “universality, objectivity, non-selectivity, and the elimination of double standards.”
Madam President, fifteen years later, where do we stand? Has the UN kept its promise?
Let’s take a look. In this session, there is one agenda item on the entire world, 193 countries, and then a separate agenda item that targets one country alone: Israel. No other UN member state is singled out.
There is no agenda item on Iran, which massacres its own people for protesting; no agenda item on Russia, which poisons dissidents; no agenda item on Cuba, which throws artists into prison; and no agenda item on China, which herded 1 million Uighur Muslims into camps, persecutes Christians, disappeared courageous men and women who sounded the alarm on the coronavirus, and extinguished freedom in Hong Kong.
On the contrary, China, Russia and Cuba were just elected as members of this Council.
Madam President, is this objectivity?
Let’s look at the reports. In this session, the Council will hear and debate one report on Sri Lanka, one on Myanmar, one on Nicaragua — and four on Israel, more than on any other country.
Yet there are:zero reports on Somalia, where 95% of girls aged 4 to 11 face genital mutilation; zero reports on Pakistan, which persecutes Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Shias, and Ahmadis; and zero reports on Mauritania, which, according to CNN and the Guardian, is the world’s last bastion of actual slavery, with 500,000 black slaves.
On the contrary, all of these countries are members of this Human Rights Council.
And let’s look at the resolutions. In this session, there will be one on North Korea, one on Syria, one on Sri Lanka — and then five on Israel. These resolutions condemn Israel for defending itself against terrorist rockets, stabbings and car-ramming attacks, and incentivize Hamas and Islamic Jihad to continue targeting civilians.
Yet there will zero resolutions on Saudi Arabia, which subjugates women and imprisons pro-democracy activists like Raif Badawi; zero resolutions on Turkey, which purged thousands of academics, journalists and judges, and tramples its Kurdish population, and zero on Venezuela, where brutal oppression and state collapse have caused 5 million people to flee.
Madam President, on the 15th anniversary of the reformed Human Rights Council, we ask: Where is the promised universality, objectivity and elimination of double standards?
Thank you, Madam President.
Reuters, March 12, 2021
U.S. condemns China at UN rights forum for abuse of Uighurs, Tibetans
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States on Friday condemned China’s abuse of ethnic and religious minorities, including what it called “crimes against humanity and genocide” in Xinjiang against Muslim Uighurs and severe restrictions in Tibet.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who meets his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Alaska next week, is due to raise the treatment of Uighurs, U.S. officials have said.
China rejects U.S. charges that it has committed genocide against Uighur and other Muslims in the remote western region, where activists say more than 1 million are held in internment camps.
“We condemn China’s abuse of members of ethnic and religious minority groups including crimes against humanity and genocide in Xinjiang and severe restrictions in Tibet,” Mark Cassayre, U.S. charge d’affaires, told the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Chen Xu, China’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, did not refer directly to Xinjiang in a speech saying that his country opposed politicisation of human rights issues.
Cuba, speaking on behalf of 64 countries including China, said Xinjiang is “an inseparable part of China” and urged states to “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs by manipulating Xinjiang-related issues, (and) refrain from making unfounded allegations against China out of political motivations”.
Britain’s ambassador, Julian Braithwaite, told the forum: “We remain deeply concerned by the extensive and systematic human rights violations in Xinjiang, including credible reports of forced labour and forced birth control.”
China says the complexes it set up in Xinjiang provide vocational training to help stamp out Islamist extremism and separatism. Allegations of forced labour and human rights violations are “groundless rumour and slander”, the Chinese foreign ministry says.
Cassayre and Braithwaite raised concerns about Hong Kong, where 21 activists are to remain in custody after a court on Friday rejected requests by some for bail.
The charges against a total of 47 opposition figures represent the most sweeping use yet of Hong Kong’s new security law, which punishes what it broadly defines as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.
“We condemn Hong Kong authorities’ detention of democratic activists for exercising their rights and freedoms and call for their immediate release,” Cassayre said.
Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge; Editing by Giles Elgood
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
United Nations Human Rights Council, March 11, 2021
Cuba: Rights of human rights defenders must be upheld, says UN expert
GENEVA (11 March 2021) – A UN expert today called on Cuba to stop intimidation and detention of human rights defenders working for racial justice in the country.
“The recurrent arrests of human rights defenders on the island, the lack of access to legal representation while they are detained and the surveillance exercised by agents of the Department of State Security is contrary to international law and must cease,” said Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.
Members of the Committee for Racial Integration in Cuba, who combat racism and discrimination against the island’s Afro-Cuban population, have been detained since 2017 by State Security agentin their homes. Up to 2019, they have also been prevented from travelling to events related to human rights advocacy with little or no explanation.
Lawlor said there is an intrinsic relationship between human rights and those who defend them. “Human rights defenders raise their voices calling for the proper functioning of the rule of law and their role must be recognised.”
The Special Rapporteur said members of the Committee for Racial Integration in Cuba were targeted frequently. “They suffer limitations to their freedom of movement due to what appears to be an intelligence network that begins with the misuse of criminal law and ends with harassment by the authorities.
"Human rights defenders must not be subjected to reprisals because of their legitimate work to help create a civil and just society,” Lawlor said.
The expert is in contact with the authorities on this matter.
The expert’s call was endorsed by: Ms. Dominique Day (chairperson), Mr. Ahmed Reid, Mr. Michal Balcerzak, Mr. Sabelo Gumedze, Mr. Ricardo A. Sunga III Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Mr. Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur on the rights to peaceful assembly and of association,
ENDS
Ms Mary Lawlor, (Ireland) is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of Business and Human Rights in Trinity College Dublin. She was the founder of Front Line Defenders - the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. As Executive Director from 2001-2016, she represented Front Line Defenders and had a key role in its development. Ms. Lawlor was the Director of the Irish Section of Amnesty International from 1988 to 2000, became a Board member in 1975 and was elected Chair from 1983 to 1987.
Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
UN Human Rights, Country Page: Cuba
For more information please contact Adriana Zarraluqui (+41 22 917 9965 / azarraluqui@ohchr.org) or write to defenders@ohchr.org.
For media enquiries regarding other UN independent experts, please contact Renato de Souza (+41 229289855 / rrosariodesouza@ohchr.org)
Follow news related to the UN’s independent human rights experts on Twitter @UN_SPExperts.
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https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26875&LangID=E
Newsweek, March 8, 2021
Cuba Being on the UN Human Rights Council Is a Travesty | Opinion
Elyssa Koren , Director of United Nations Advocacy, ADF International
On 3/8/21 at 6:00 AM EST
The Cuban government is settling into its new role as an elected member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Juxtapose this against recent news of eight Cuban migrants, including two expectant mothers, rescued after capsizing in a styrofoam boat en route to Florida. In the face of seemingly irreconcilable headlines, we must ask—how can one of the foremost perpetrators of human rights abuses assume a credible role on the international stage?
Evidence points to increasing repression on the island, with Amnesty International recognizing six official prisoners of conscience representing only a fraction of those detained. And a dissident music video has grabbed international attention with impassioned lyrics and reggaeton beats. It is in this context that it is so jarring to hear the Cuban representative assert to the UN at the ongoing 46th session of the Human Rights Council that "Cuba has given irrefutable proof of its firm commitment to the promotion and protection of the human rights of its people and other peoples in the world."
As a Cuban-American human rights lawyer with a decade-long career at the UN, the legitimization of Cuba as a valid human rights player brings me great personal and professional anguish. I reflect upon the history of my family, exiled from the island in 1961. My grandfather was a revolutionary seeking a free Cuba. He championed the insurrection against the repressive Batista dictatorship—an initial attempt at authentic nationalism that sadly fell prey to socialism. He rose to a position of prominence in the early Castro government, only to be betrayed by the quick onset of violence in the regime. Seeing the writing on the wall, he prepared for his family's exodus to Miami, and in so doing caught the attention of the CIA, culminating in being asked by the American government to assassinate Fidel Castro as confirmed by declassified documents.
Seated only a few feet away from Castro at his desk as first secretary, my grandfather was prevented from killing him by moral compunction—a fact that Castro vehemently rejected. While the details are lost in history, what is clear is that Castro, and his Cuban revolutionary government, lived to take their toll. Having put his family on a plane to Miami, my grandfather left his position, taking asylum in an embassy. He remained there for three years, waiting for his own safe passage. Meanwhile, his family in Florida, including my teenage mother, led the rallying cry for his freedom, picketing, handing out leaflets and contacting heads of state to get him out of Cuba.
I recall cousins arriving in Miami in the 1990s, starved thin and battered by sun and sea, having just barely survived the trek across the ocean on a wooden plank—a few of their companions lost on the way, having succumbed to sharks. Regardless of one's stance on American obligations toward Cuban refugees, conditions on the island must be far from ideal to inspire so many struggling Cubans over the decades to risk the treacherous trip to freedom.
It goes without that saying that I firmly object to the presence of Cuba on the Human Rights Council. Raised with the anti-Communist virulence of a Cuban-American in exile, my history leaves me with no choice but to conclude that some governments are indeed so repressive as to be incontrovertibly unfit for positions of human rights leadership. That said, I would be remiss if I were to project a straightforward answer to the widely-recognized crisis of human rights before us.
At the risk of reiterating the revolutionary rhetoric my family so vehemently eschews, I will say that my work at the UN has made clear that the West does not always know best. In fact, I see firsthand that Western states are often themselves perpetrators of coercive dynamics, rendering them complicit in the weakening of the global human rights system.
Given the pervasiveness of human rights hypocrisy, it is nearly impossible to impart black and white labels, designating some governments as unreservedly "good" and some as unreservedly "bad." There is thus no straightforward way to deal with the presence of human rights abusers on the Council. We must take seriously efforts to displace the worst human rights offenders (such as UN Watch's new initiative on Venezuela), and there is sufficient cause for the same to apply to Cuba. The reality, however, is that the Human Rights Council has deep-seated problems of politicization that go far beyond mere membership.
The United States has announced that it will run for a seat on the Council for the 2022-24 term. I urge the Biden administration to look critically at what will solve the crisis of human rights—a crisis epitomized by the presence of Cuba on the Council, but with myriad other ramifications. As the Council embarks upon its own extensive reform process, it must be emphasized that the bodies of the UN are indeed needed and worth reforming. I maintain hope that the international community can muster the creativity, as well as requisite humility, to correct the imbalances that threaten the very sustainability of the human rights system.
Elyssa Koren is director of United Nations advocacy for ADF International. Follow her on Twitter: @Elyssa_ADFIntl.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
https://www.newsweek.com/cuba-being-un-human-rights-council-travesty-opinion-1574156
International Service for Human Rights, March 4, 2021
HRC46 | In Cuba, reading poems can land you in jail
Cuban activist and academic Anamely Ramos describes the repression she and other cultural rights defenders face and - to coincide with the report of the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights to the Human Rights Council - calls for the right to freedom of expression and for artistic freedom to be respected.
Activist and academic Anamely Ramos, member of the San Isidro Movement of artists, speaks out about the threats and attacks carried out against cultural defenders in Cuba.
Ramos was detained during a raid on the Movement´s headquarters in November 2020 and held incommunicado. Authorities claimed the raid related to violations of supposed regulations related to COVID-19. Ramos had previously spoken out against the proposed Decree 349 that required artists to get a permit from the Cuban ministry of culture if they wanted to perform in public or private spaces. It is feared its effect would be to silence and curb the activities of artists and activists.
Anamely’s full statement:
My name is Anamely Ramos González. I am one of the 14 Cuban activists who were quartered in November 2020, at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, some of us on hunger and thirst. On the night of the 26th of that month, soldiers dressed as doctors forcibly imprisoned us, alleging the spread of the coronavirus. We were beaten, disappeared for several hours and sentenced to house arrest. Our only 'crime': reading poetry to demand the freedom of rapper Denis Solis, victim of arbitary detention.
Hours later, more than 200 young people voluntarily gathered in front of the Ministry of Culture to demand an end to censorship. Press images show the police siege and the use of tear gas. On 27th January 2021 several returned to congregate in front of the Ministry, and they were beaten once again violently even as they were reading poems aloud. This time this occured in front of officials of the Ministry of Culture.
In order to promote cultural rights in Cuba, it would be necessary to guarantee that all its citizens have the right to express themselves freely about their lives, their environment, and their dreams for change, without that resulting in persecution, defamation campaigns, acts of repudiation, beatings, prohibition of movement, arbitrary arrests and prison sentences.
So far, the cultural policy of the Cuban State does not recognize independent artistic organizations. Nor those that fight for the rights of minorities or those who fight for the respect of human rights. It acts as if official institutions are sole representatives of Cuban culture, and at times employs them for repression. Decree laws 349 and 370 criminalize dissent and criticism.
The Cuban State must recognize our right to associate freely and to assemble peacefully, and should extend an invitation to the country to the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights and she should meet with genuinely independent activists.
UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights’ words:
Anamely’s message is delivered to coincide with the presentation of the report by the UN independent expert on cultural rights, Karima Bennoune, focusing on the effect of Covid19 on cultural rights. Here, Bennoune spoke of how Covid19 measures were being employed to ‘criminalise artists with dissenting views’. The detention of artists could act as a ‘defacto death sentence’ given the presence of the virus in detention centres. Bennoune concluded her dialogue with States by emphasising the positive potential of cultures and cultural rights to enhance rights-respecting solutions and build resilience.
ISHR was pleased to join other human rights and cultural organisations in presenting a statement in support of the Special Rapporteur’s work.
‘The statement we joined ends with a clear message,’ said ISHR’s Eleanor Openshaw. 'Cultural freedom is not a luxury; instead, it needs to be at the heart of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic’
Contact: Eleanor Openshaw - e.openshaw@ishr.ch
https://www.ishr.ch/news/hrc46-cuba-reading-poems-can-land-you-jail