Center for a Free Cuba recommendations to the upcoming Universal Periodic Review of Cuba

LEGALITY AND RESPECT FOR THE LIFE OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

1. Given the repressive actions of the Cuban State against human rights defenders and activists, we ask that it be ensured that Cuban human rights defenders can work in a safe environment, particularly that their legality and validity be clearly and publicly recognized. by the Cuban government. Let the continuous attacks and slander campaigns by senior representatives of the Cuban State, its agents of influence, and the political police cease.

Recomendaciones del Centro por una Cuba Libre al Examen Periódico Universal de Cuba

LEGALIDAD Y RESPETO A LA VIDA DE LOS DEFENSORES DE DERECHOS HUMANOS
1. Ante las acciones represivas del Estado cubano contra los defensores y activistas de derechos humanos, pedimos que se asegure que los defensores de derechos humanos cubanos puedan trabajar en un ambiente seguro, particularmente, que se reconozca su legalidad y validez claramente y de forma pública por parte del gobierno de Cuba. Que cesen los ataque continuos y las campañas de descrédito por parte de altos representantes del Estado cubano, sus agentes de influencia, y la policía política.

Universal Periodic Review Submission on Cuba

1. Our contribution to the Universal Periodic Review of the Cuban state this year 2023, will focus on specific events framed in the protests of the month of July 2021 in Cuba, the implications and results of which still affect thousands of imprisoned Cuban citizens, and have claimed innocent lives through the use of force by uniformed police and repressive paramilitary forces that are part of the authorities of the Island of Cuba. We also include other cases of extrajudicial executions that are included in the time covered by this report.

Briefing: Cuban soldiers in the Russian army fighting in Ukraine. Some historical context.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez on September 5, 2023  launched a smokescreen to misdirect attention from their support for Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. It is reminiscent of another launched by Havana in 1989 that became known as the Ochoa affair.  Agents of influence will now mobilize to advance Havana's spin, and call for giving the 64-year-old military dictatorship the benefit of the doubt. During the Ochoa affair, the Castro regime had Ana Belen Montes firmly embedded at the Pentagon in the Defense Intelligence Agency both spying for Havana, and manipulating U.S. policy, and media coverage towards Cuba. The failure to recognize what the dictatorship in Cuba continues to do to flood the United States with cocaine, is a factor that is costing lives. In 1999, the year when Washington intensified sharing intelligence and cooperation with Havana on "anti-narcotics" efforts, 3,186 U.S. citizens died of cocaine overdoses. In 2021, after 22 years of this "cooperation" 23,513 died in 2021.

"Cuba’s Contempt for Human Rights" By Logan M. Williams

Rana Siu Inboden, Ph.D., with the National Endowment for Democracy released a report titled “Defending the Global Human Rights System from Authoritarian Assault: How Democracies Can Re-take the Initiative” on 5 July 2023. In both the published report and the conference which NED held to discuss it, Inboden made it clear that Cuba exists at the forefront of the authoritarian assault on the human rights-centric world order. This report states that Cuba has been the core and a principal organizer of the coalition of nations dedicated to the devaluing, and eventual destruction, of multilateral human rights institutions. This coalition also includes such habitual offenders of human rights as: China, Russia, Pakistan, Belarus, North Korea, and Iran.

Crises in China and in Cuba necessitate more public diplomacy: Direct and uncensored information to Chinese and Cuban peoples need to be expanded.

The Center has received reports that two dozen Radio Marti employees are to be fired for budgetary reasons. Cutting back personnel and programming to Cuba in the midst multiple escalating crises is short sighted. Equally disturbing are reports that Voice of America has canceled Chinese-language programs on Taiwan at a moment that Beijing is engaged in an increasingly hostile military posture against Taipei, and has been expanding its shortwave and AM broadcasts around the world to advance its propaganda objectives. That the United States has been scaling back its shortwave and AM radio programming while relying more on the internet that can be shutdown, and jammed more easily than these older technologies is worrisome.

Involvement of Cuba in Terrorism: 2020-2022 By Jose Arias | Center for a Free Cuba

Cuban involvement with terrorism has been a historical topic with different stages. In 2021, when the United States declared Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism, the topic came up again, and there have been many controversial arguments on both sides of the matter. The period of 2020–2022, therefore, presents an interesting stage in Cuban involvement with terrorism. Cuba has maintained close relations with countries that are directly involved in terrorist attacks and with terrorist groups from Syria, Iran, and North Korea. Cuba has also been proven to hide and help terrorists from different countries, like the United States and Colombia. At least one terrorist group that has an agency in Cuba has been used as a center of operations that take place in Latin America. Co-acting with Venezuela, Cuba presents a big threat to not only Latin American countries but to the United States and the whole world too. Cuba's position in terrorism is facing a stage in which the country acts as a coordinator who provides information, knowledge, and the logistics necessary to other countries and groups who directly commit terrorist attacks.

INFORME DE LA VIOLACION DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS EN CUBA (Actualizado)

Entre los meses de julio y diciembre del 2021, la represión en Cuba ha aumentado debido a la rebeldía del pueblo de Cuba que se evidenció durante las protestas contra el régimen comunista castrista iniciadas de forma masiva el 11 de julio de 2021. El mismo 11 de julio, en el medio de las demostraciones, Miguel Diaz Canel, representante de turno de la dictadura castrista, convocó a la represión basándose en el Artículo 4 de la Constitución vigente. El Artículo 4 declara:

INFORME DE LA VIOLACIÓN DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS EN CUBA JULIO-DICIEMBRE 2021

Entre los meses de julio y diciembre del 2021, la represión en Cuba ha aumentado debido a la rebeldía del pueblo de Cuba que se evidenció durante las protestas contra el régimen comunista castrista iniciadas de forma masiva el 11 de julio de 2021. El mismo 11 de julio, en el medio de las demostraciones, Miguel Diaz Canel, representante de turno de la dictadura castrista, convocó a la represión basándose en el Artículo 4 de la Constitución vigente.

Cartel de Soles

The drug trafficking organization Cartel de Soles or Cartel of the Suns is comprised of a network of cells spread throughout the various branches of the Venezuelan military and government.[i] This group is involved in drug and gasoline smuggling, illegal mining, and other illegal activities.[ii] The Cartel de Soles started off within the military, specifically in the National Guard. Since then, other branches of the military have been connected to the cartel including the army, navy, and air force.[iii] The Cartel has connections to various Colombian guerrilla groups who mainly supply and traffic the cocaine. Cuban involvement with Venezuela’s security forces and government influenced the Cartel’s expansion. The group allegedly has members high up in the government making it difficult to investigate the cartel on Venezuelan soil.[iv]

A Publication of the Cuban Studies Institute: CUBA’S SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM

Although President Barack Obama removed Cuba in 2015 from the U.S. State Department list of countries supporting terrorism, and President Trump included it again in 2020, the Cuban regime continues to collaborate with terrorist groups and countries, and harbors U.S., Spanish, and Colombian terrorists in the island.