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NEWS
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Cuba signs 2 human
rights treaties
By James C. McKinley Jr. Published:
February 29, 2008
HAVANA: Just days after Raúl Castro took office as this country's new
president, Cuba's Communist government has signed two important
international human rights treaties that Fidel Castro had long opposed,
another sign the new administration might set a new course.
It remained to be seen what the signing of the two pacts would mean for
political prisoners on the island. The foreign minister, Felipe Pérez
Roque, said after a signing ceremony in New York on Thursday the
government still had reservations about some provisions.
Elizardo Sánchez, head of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and
National Reconciliation, said the signing was "positive news because the
signing of these pacts is an old demand from inside Cuba and from the
international community."
"I hope Cuba honors the letter and spirit of the law of these pacts, but
I am not sure it will," Sánchez told The Associated Press.
In a statement published here Friday, Pérez Roque asserted that the
Cuban government had always upheld the rights outlined in the two
international agreements, since the moment Fidel Castro seized power
1959 and then established a one-party totalitarian state.
"This signing formalizes and reaffirms the rights protected by each
agreement, which my country has systematically been upholding since the
triumph of the revolution," he said.
One of the pacts, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, guarantees
"civil and political freedom," including the right to
self-determination, peaceful assembly, freedom of religion, privacy,
freedom to leave a country and equal protection before the law.
At present, Cuba severely restricts the travel of its citizens, bans any
political parties other than the Communist Party and prohibits
independent political meetings.
Sánchez's rights group estimates there are at least 230 political
prisoners in Cuba's network of 200 jails and detention centers. Amnesty
International has said there are at least 58 "prisoners of conscience"
on the island, making Cuba one of the most repressive governments in the
world when it comes to free speech.
The other pact signed Thursday, the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, requires countries to ensure the right to
work, fair wages, freedom to form and join trade unions, social
security, education and the highest attainable standard of physical and
mental health.
In 2001, Fidel Castro criticized that covenant, saying it "could serve
as a weapon and a pretext for imperialism to try to divide and fracture
the workers, create artificial unions, and decrease their political and
social power and influence."
Pérez Roque said Cuba had not dropped its opposition to independent
labor unions. He said the country was signing the covenants now because
the old UN Human Rights Commission had been replaced by a new Human
Rights Council in 2006. The council dropped Cuba last year from the list
of the countries whose rights records warranted investigation, a move
the United States strongly opposed.
The Cuban foreign minister accused the United States of having used the
old commission for "brutal pressure and blackmail" against Cuba.
Human rights activists say it is premature to tell whether Raúl Castro
will liberate political prisoners, although there have been some small
signs the new president favors greater freedom of speech.
The younger Castro brother has openly encouraged more debate and
criticism in the society. Some free-speech advocates took it as a good
sign that the government held back in punishing a group of students who
sharply questioned the president of the National Assembly recently over
the travel ban.
Earlier in February, Cuba released four human rights activists who had
been imprisoned during a crackdown in 2003, in which 73 people were
arrested, and allowed them to migrate to Spain.
Though human rights advocates welcomed the release of the four
prisoners, most said Cuba still had a long way to go before people could
speak their minds freely. "The people are bound hand and foot,
intimidated," Sánchez said.
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