Fourteen years of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy: A look back

"The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it." - Albert Einstein

The 14th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy convenes in Switzerland on April 6, 2022. Over the past fourteen years this summit has been and continues to be a vital space for dissenting voices to gather and engage in an important conversation: to diagnose the problems challenging human rights and dignity and to do better and be better in order to turn around the 16 year global decline in human rights.  

 

The first edition was held on April 19, 2009, "one day before the international community gather[ed] in Geneva to address racism, intolerance and persecution in the High-Level Segment of the UN Durban Review Conference (DRC)" and it had a longer title, "Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy" and the tag line, "Stop Discrimination, Go for Human Rights." UN Watch, a Geneva based NGO whose mission is "to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter", brought together an international coalition of nineteen organizations to co-sponsor the summit. 

Founding members of the Coalition are: The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), AVEGA (Rwanda), CADAL (Argentina), Directorio (Cuba), Darfur Peace and Development Center (Sudan), Fondation Généreuse Développement (Cameroon), Freedom House (USA), Freedom Now (USA ), Groupe des Anciens Etudiants Réscapés du Genocide (Rwanda), Global Zimbabwe Forum (Zimbabwe), Human Rights Without Frontiers (Belgium),  International Federation of Liberal Youth, (United Kingdom), Ingenieurs du Monde (Switzerland) LICRA (France), SOS Racisme (France), Stop Child Executions (Canada), Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (USA), East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (Uganda), UN Watch (Switzerland). Fourteen years later the partners coalition has grown to 27.

Arielle Herzog, Leon Saltiel, Hillel C. Neuer and other UN Watch staff were the chief organizers of the first six editions and responsible for their great success and establishing this space for dialogue. UN Watch today continues to lead this coalition and build on this great legacy, but it is important to return to the beginning to see how we arrived were we are today.

The UN Durban Review Conference (DRC) of 2009 was one more example of the ongoing moral bankruptcy of the United Nations. The star speaker, and apparently the only head of state invited to speak, was Iran's notorious president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who engages in holocaust denial and has called for the destruction of Israel. This conference, ostensibly to confront the problem of racism, began a gathering point of the worse dictatorships on the planet to legitimize themselves and demonize Israel.

Meanwhile, in marked contrast, the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy was held at the Centre International de Conférences Genève, just down the street from the Palais des Nations UN compound where the DRC was being held. Human rights defenders, victims of repression and political dissidents gathered to share their experiences, bear witness, and attempt to wield real political force from the power of human conscience. This is what the martyred Czech dissident and philosopher Jan Patočka called the "solidarity of the shaken". This coalition called for an end to discrimination and for human rights promotion.

The first summit's inaugural speech was given by by Iranian Activist and President of Stop Child Executions, Nazanin Afshin Jam, who outlined the human rights situation in Iran. She addressed that under Iranian laws the life of a woman is worth half of a man's and other sexist practices, the execution of homosexuals, and the executions of minors. The Iranian activist also gave an overview of the summit that began at 9:00am and ended at 6:30pm.

The inaugural summit was divided into four sessions that were tied into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Session I was titled "Racism, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity: Assessing the Genocide Convention After 60 Years" and the panel was made up by Irwin Cotler, Counsel for genocide victims and dissidents, Canadian MP, Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch and International Association of Genocide Scholars, Ester Murawajo, Tutsi survivor, founder of AVEGA and Dominique Sopo, President of SOS Racisme.  

Session II was titled "Resisting Authoritarianism: Human Rights, Democracy, and the Dissident Movement" with speakers Bo Kyi, Burmese dissident and winner of the Human Rights Prize from Human Rights Watch, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egyptian dissident, José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, Cuban dissident and prisoner of conscience, and Esra'a Al Shafei, dissident blogger, Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead.

Session III was titled "Torture and Cruel and Inhuman Treatment" with speakers Nazanin Afshin-Jam, president of Stop Child Execution,  Parvez Sharma, Producer of the documentary Jihad for Love, and Ahmad Batebi, Iranian dissident.

Session IV was titled "Freedom of Expression and 'Defamation of Religion'" with panelists  Mohamed Sifaoui, Journalist, Algeria, Floyd Abrams, U.S. advocate for First Amendment press freedom,  Patrick Gaubert, President of LICRA and Member of the European Parliament.

The 2nd Geneva Summit was held on March 8-9, 2010, strategically timed to coincide with the main annual session of the U.N. Human Rights Council. The objective of the 2010 Geneva Summit was to give voice to victims of the world’s worst abusers, empowering those who suffer repression under closed systems of government.

The program featured plenary sessions, workshops and training sessions over two days. A large portion of the program was dedicated to presentations—personal and compelling testimony—from victims of the world’s worst abusers.

On March 8, 2010 gave the opening address on behalf of the Geneva Summit Coalition for the second edition of the Geneva Summit. Sadly, these words remain relevant today, but now the global decline in political freedoms and civil liberties has expanded from four to thirteen years in a row.

Regrettably, the chief international body charged with protecting human rights is failing to live up to its mission to stop these and other abuses. The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council—as acknowledged in a recent report by 17 of its 47 member states, supported by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists—falls short in its handling of country situations, in the efficiency of the process involved in highlighting violations, and in its reactivity to crisis situations. Strong politicization of the Council, driven by bloc-based voting patterns, has led to inaction in face of atrocity and abuse. We saw this sad spectacle last week within the Council, first with the secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights denying the documented and rampant instances of torture, executions, and mass detentions of Iranians followed by the Cuban Foreign Minister’s speech who echoing his Iranian colleague also denied Cuba’s horrible human rights record and to add insult to injury went on to blame the United States for the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo as well as slander the deceased Cuban prisoner of conscience as a criminal.

Little wonder that the March 1st magazine issue of Newsweek contains an article titled “The Downfall of Human Rights.” The article highlights Freedom House's report "Freedom in the World," released in January, and reveals a global decline in political freedoms and civil liberties for the fourth year in a row, the longest drop in the almost 40 years that the survey has been produced.

According to Summit organizers, "[m]ore then 800 people registered to attend the summit and over 1600 watched the live webcast. 35 dissidents and human rights activists took the floor to condemn and testify about some of the worst human rights situations around the world and issued a joint call for Internet Freedom around the world."
Cuban dissident Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina was denied an exit visa by the Castro regime despite being invited to attend the Geneva Summit, but the coalition did not stop there and started a campaign for him to attend.

30 NGOs from this Summit called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to intervene on behalf of Cuban human rights defender Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina barred by the Cuban dictatorship from attending this meeting. The Cuban ambassador protested loudly when Hillel Neuer of UN Watch raised the matter in an interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner, but Nestor on the other hand was grateful that the UN Watch representative spoke up for his human rights.

In the end Nestor addressed the summit by phone, and would attend and address the 2012 Summit in person. Still remember the powerful and haunting testimony of Caspian Makan, human rights activist, and fiancé of Neda Agha-Soltan, who was murdered in Iran by pro-regime agents months earlier on June 20, 2009. Another speaker who made a powerful impression was Yang Jianli, activist in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, a former political prisoner, and founder of Initiatives for China and today a friend. The Geneva Summit created network of activists that remain in contact and continue to collaborate.

Cuban human rights defenders and victims of repression have had a voice at this gathering over the past fourteen years to denounce their plight and call for human rights and freedom for Cuba. Former Cuban prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo (2009, 2010), Luis Enrique Ferrer Garcia (2011), Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina (2012), Regis Iglesias (2013), and Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya (2015), human rights defender and daughter of martyred actvist Rosa Maria Paya (2013, 2016), human rights defender Damarys Moya Portieles (2014), human rights defender and social democrat Manuel Cuesta Morua (2015), former prisoner of conscience, human rights defender and artist Danilo Maldonado El Sexto (2017), Sakharov laureate Guillermo Fariñas Hernández (2018), human rights lawyer Juan Carlos Gutiérrez representing Cuban prisoner of conscience Dr. Eduardo Cardet (2019), Cuban lawyer, journalist, and human rights defender who serves as Executive Director of the nonprofit Cubalex Laritza Diversent (2020), Cuban political performance artist Tania Bruguera (2021), and Cuban visual artist and political activist Hamlet Lavastida (2022).

2013 was the last time I addressed the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy during the fifth edition of the gathering and less than seven months after Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante had been murdered by State Security on July 22, 2012. Present in the room were Rosa María Payá Acevedo, and Regis Iglesias Ramírez of the Christian Liberation Movement. Both had addressed the meeting.

The 5th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy today is an opportunity for reflection. Unfortunately, the human rights situation around the world has not improved over the past five years and in many instances worsened. The question is why? Cuban democratic opposition activist, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, when awarded the Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought on December 17, 2002 observed that “The cause of human rights is a single cause, just as the people of the world are a single people. The talk today is of globalization, but we must state that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights but also the right to remain human will be jeopardized.” The past decade has demonstrated that he was right.

Cuban state security has worked for decades trying to discredit and silence authentic dissident voices and continues to today with their spies and agents of influence.  It is a constant struggle to frustrate their efforts. They are willing to lie, slander, assault and even murder those who have the courage to dissent. The 2012 killings of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero and the firing on unarmed protesters during the 11J protests in Cuba demonstrate this.

For decades Cuban victims of repression said that nobody listened, and in 1987 an award winning documentary titled "Nobody Listened" interviewed Cuban political prisoners and human rights defenders describing the lack of international solidarity.  

Over the past fourteen years thanks to the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy their voices have been and continue to be heard.  

The next summit begins on Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 9:00am Central European Time. For more information visit the Geneva Summit website here. Use hashtags #GenevaSummit2022 and #GS22

 

Will Canada stand up for democracy in the upcoming OAS elections?

Fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me.

Almagro                       Espinosa                            De Zala

 Will Prime Minister Justin Trudeau allow a Chavista candidate, or a political opportunist with ties to Chavismo, become the next Secretary General of the Organization of American States? Conventional opinion expressed in The Washington Diplomat claims that the current OAS secretary general Luis Almagro has the backing of Canada, but in recent years the traditional view has often been proven wrong

Carlos E. Ponce, Senior Lecturer, Columbia University, Senior Fellow, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and former Freedom House Latin American director has written an important opinion piece in El Tiempo Latino that outlines the high stakes in the upcoming vote for the next OAS Secretary General, and the role played by Canada.

"A new election approaches to re-elect or elect a new secretary general for the Organization of American States (OAS). The competition is between the re-election of the current Secretary General Luis Almagro and two candidates who could put the very existence of the organization at risk. Those two candidates are the former Minister of Defense, and a highly trusted person to the former Ecuadorian dictator Rafael Correa, the Ecuadorian María Fernanda Espinosa; and the ambassador of Peru to the United States, Hugo De Zela."

Ponce than provides an analysis of what the institutional outcome would be if either Espinosa or De Zela is elected to the post.

"Mrs. Espinosa has not been nominated by Ecuador, her country, but by two ALBA countries, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Of particular interest is the support of a person so close to Nicolas Maduro and Hugo Chávez, who is also nominated by the autocrat of San Vicente, Ralph Gonsalves, who has been supporting the narco-dictatorship of Venezuela and benefiting from that relationship. Espinosa has in her favor the ability to convince with a false, but effective discourse, which led various civil society organizations to fall in love with her. These organizations seem to forget that during Rafael Correa's government was when there was an inclement persecution against the Inter-American Human Rights System and that Espinosa was part of a government that systematically violated human rights and freedom of expression. On the other hand, the dangerous game of Argentina and Mexico, supporting this candidate, endangers the very existence of the OAS. Espinosa's triumph would return the OAS to an appendix of ideological factors that seek the destruction of the regional organization and would give the perfect excuse to the United States to suspend economic aid to that organization."

"The other candidate who wants the position of secretary general, Hugo De Zela, has a capacity for political adaptation to all the different governments that have passed through Peru in the last 42 years; He is a bureaucrat who adapts effectively to changes and manipulates institutions for his personal interest. He was the chief of staff of the most gray and noxious general secretary of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza."

In either case with the departure of Almagro, his replacement would be seeking an accommodation with Maduro in Venezuela and Castro in Cuba. This was the status quo under OAS secretary general José Miguel Insulza who attended gatherings in Cuba, and dropped the ball on Venezuela as the crisis worsened and spun out of control.

This leads to the obvious question. Why would Canada not be strongly backing Almagro?

Historically, Canada has been a strong defender of human rights and fairness on the international state, but today there is cause for concern with the current government. This would be a Faustian bargain that would trade this vote for the votes of several Caribbean countries to obtain a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Recent history indicates that regional democrats and human rights defenders should be concerned.

In November 2019, Canada shifted its long time support for Israel at the United Nations backing a anti-Israel resolution sponsored by North Korea and Zimbabwe that broke years of a Canadian bipartisan consensus in defense of the one democracy in the Middle East.

The vote change is dramatic. If it wanted to shift, Trudeau's government could have moved from a No, as it voted last year with U.S., to an Abstain, as Australia voted today. Instead, they jumped all the way to a Yes—for the first time in years and breaking bi-partisan tradition. pic.twitter.com/qw3CeX4ViV

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 19, 2019

According to International lawyer, human rights activist, UN Watch Executive Director, Hillel Neuer describing the November 2019 vote, "Trudeau is trading Canada's bedrock principles of fairness and equality for a UN Security Council seat."

Reading the February 15, 2020 column by Earl Bousquet titled "Between the Bridgetown Summit and the Washington OAS Vote" should give one cause for concern on the Canadian position on the upcoming vote. Bousquet described the priorities at The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Bridgetown Summit that took place on February 17-18th and cited that Canada's Trudeau was pushing for the CARICOM's support for the UN Security Council seat. According to Bousquet, the preferred Caribbean candidate is the Chavista candidate, María Fernanda Espinosa.

Taking all of this into consideration than what Carlos Ponce describes makes alarming sense and should be a wake up call to democrats in the region, and for Canadians to ask Prime Minister Trudeau what he is doing?

Trudeau meets Castro at his father's funeral

Professor Ponce presents a disturbing picture of Canada's strategic support for De Zela that is roughly translated below:

"On this occasion, in addition to his country's nomination, he has Canada's strategic support for his candidacy. De Zela's game is clear, allow Almagro and Espinosa to confront each other and since there is no consensus, he will sell himself as the candidate who gets support in different sectors and who should be the consensus candidate. A strategy that seems to have come from Canada. The possible failure of Espinosa would lead Argentina, Mexico and the Caribbean to support the De Zela candidacy. ... The triumph of candidate De Zela would take the OAS back to a gray stage, full of political compromises and little attention to the fight against dictatorships and authoritarians of the region; in other words, a return to a time similar to that of Insulza."

However, this game played by the Trudeau government goes beyond simple vote swapping, although it is a factor. Trudeau demonstrated his affinity for the Castro regime, upon the death of Fidel Castro in 2016, with a statement that could have been authored by Senator Bernie Sanders.

“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President. Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation."

 Prime Minister Trudeau has an unhealthy affection for Cuba's dictatorship that has killed tens of thousands of Cubans, jailed hundreds of thousands of political opponents, and driven an entire nation into misery, and assisting in the destruction of a second.  This is why the stakes later this month with the election of the OAS secretary is of such great importance. Sadly, the current Canadian government is playing a dangerous game that would deal a negative blow to the Organization of American States. Professor Ponce outlines the Canadian government's dangerous double standard between Cuba and Venezuela.

"Within the process of designating the Secretary General, the double standards of the Government of Canada are very dangerous, who on the one hand speak of the need to free Venezuela from tyranny, but at the same time openly support the dictatorship of Cuba. Not only do they support it at the diplomatic level, but with millions of Canadians going to the island for tourism and diverse support for programs in Cuba. But they also seem to punish Almagro for his defense of freedom for Cuba and have been campaigning for him not to be re-elected."

Friends of Israel were caught by surprise when Canada switched its vote at the UN back in November 2019. Friends of a free Cuba and a free Venezuela should take note and mobilize  to ensure that a nasty surprise isn't sprung later this month in the vote for the OAS general secretary.

Ten Years of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy: Reflections on the first decade

Reflection on ten years of summits and a call to attend the next one

The 10th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy convenes in Switzerland on February 20, 2018. Over the past decade this summit has been a vital space for dissenting voices to gather and engage in this important conversation to diagnose the problems challenging human rights and dignity and to do better and be better in order to turn the global decline of human rights around.

The first edition was held on April 19, 2009, "one day before the international community gather[ed] in Geneva to address racism, intolerance and persecution in the High-Level Segment of the UN Durban Review Conference (DRC)" and it had a longer title, "Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy" and the tag line, "Stop Discrimination, Go for Human Rights." UN Watch, a Geneva based NGO whose mission is "to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter", brought together an international coalition of nineteen organizations to co-sponsor the summit.

The founding members of the Coalition are: The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), AVEGA (Rwanda), CADAL (Argentina), Directorio (Cuba), Darfur Peace and Development Center (Sudan), Fondation Généreuse Développement (Cameroon), Freedom House (USA), Freedom Now (USA ), Groupe des Anciens Etudiants Réscapés du Genocide (Rwanda), Global Zimbabwe Forum (Zimbabwe), Human Rights Without Frontiers (Belgium),  International Federation of Liberal Youth, (United Kingdom), Ingenieurs du Monde (Switzerland) LICRA (France), SOS Racisme (France), Stop Child Executions (Canada), Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (USA), East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (Uganda), UN Watch (Switzerland). Ten year later the partners coalition has grown to 26.

Arielle Herzog, Leon Saltiel, Hillel C. Neuer and other UN Watch staff were the chief organizers of the first six editions and responsible for their great success and establishing this space for dialogue. UN Watch today continues to lead this coalition and build on this great legacy, but it is important to return to the beginning to see how we arrived were we are today.

The UN Durban Review Conference (DRC) of 2009 was one more example of the ongoing moral bankruptcy of the United Nations. The star speaker, and apparently the only head of state invited to speak, was Iran's notorious president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who engages in holocaust denial and has called for the destruction of Israel. This conference, ostensibly to confront the problem of racism, began a gathering point of the worse dictatorships on the planet to legitimize themselves.

Meanwhile, in marked contrast, the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy was held at the Centre International de Conférences Genève, just down the street from the Palais des Nations UN compound were the DRC was being held. Human rights defenders, victims of repression and political dissidents gathered to share their experiences, bear witness and attempt to wield real political force from the power of human conscience. This is what the martyred Czech dissident and philosopher Jan Patočka called the "solidarity of the shaken'. This coalition called for an end to discrimination and for human rights promotion.


The first summit's inaugural speech was given by by Iranian Activist and President of Stop Child Executions, Nazanin Afshin Jam, who outlined the human rights situation in Iran. She addressed that under Iranian laws the life of a woman is worth half of a man's and other sexist practices, the execution of homosexuals, and the executions of minors. The Iranian activist also gave an overview of the summit that began at 9:00am and ended at 6:30pm.

The inaugural summit was divided into four sessions that were tied into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Session I was titled "Racism, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity: Assessing the Genocide Convention After 60 Years" and the panel was made up by Irwin Cotler, Counsel for genocide victims and dissidents, Canadian MP, Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch and International Association of Genocide Scholars, Ester Murawajo, Tutsi survivor, founder of AVEGA and Dominique Sopo, President of SOS Racisme.  

Session II was titled "Resisting Authoritarianism: Human Rights, Democracy, and the Dissident Movement" with speakers Bo Kyi, Burmese dissident and winner of the Human Rights Prize from Human Rights Watch, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egyptian dissident, José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, Cuban dissident and prisoner of conscience, and Esra'a Al Shafei, dissident blogger, Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead.

Session III was titled "Torture and Cruel and Inhuman Treatment" with speakers Nazanin Afshin-Jam, president of Stop Child Execution,  Parvez Sharma, Producer of the documentary Jihad for Love, and Ahmad Batebi, Iranian dissident.

Session IV was titled "Freedom of Expression and 'Defamation of Religion'" with panelists  Mohamed Sifaoui, Journalist, Algeria, Floyd Abrams, U.S. advocate for First Amendment press freedom,  Patrick Gaubert, President of LICRA and Member of the European Parliament.

The 2nd Geneva Summit was held on March 8-9, 2010, strategically timed to coincide with the main annual session of the U.N. Human Rights Council. The objective of the 2010 Geneva Summit was to give voice to victims of the world’s worst abusers, empowering those who suffer repression under closed systems of government.

The program featured plenary sessions, workshops and training sessions over two days. A large portion of the program was dedicated to presentations—personal and compelling testimony—from victims of the world’s worst abusers.


On March 8, 2010 gave the opening address on behalf of the Geneva Summit Coalition for the second edition of the Geneva Summit. Sadly, these words remain relevant today, but now the global decline in political freedoms and civil liberties has expanded from four to thirteen years in a row.

Regrettably, the chief international body charged with protecting human rights is failing to live up to its mission to stop these and other abuses. The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council—as acknowledged in a recent report by 17 of its 47 member states, supported by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists—falls short in its handling of country situations, in the efficiency of the process involved in highlighting violations, and in its reactivity to crisis situations. Strong politicization of the Council, driven by bloc-based voting patterns, has led to inaction in face of atrocity and abuse. We saw this sad spectacle last week within the Council, first with the secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights denying the documented and rampant instances of torture, executions, and mass detentions of Iranians followed by the Cuban Foreign Minister’s speech who echoing his Iranian colleague also denied Cuba’s horrible human rights record and to add insult to injury went on to blame the United States for the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo as well as slander the deceased Cuban prisoner of conscience as a criminal.

Little wonder that the March 1st magazine issue of Newsweek contains an article titled “The Downfall of Human Rights.” The article highlights Freedom House's report "Freedom in the World," released in January, and reveals a global decline in political freedoms and civil liberties for the fourth year in a row, the longest drop in the almost 40 years that the survey has been produced.

According to Summit organizers, "[m]ore then 800 people registered to attend the summit and over 1600 watched the live webcast. 35 dissidents and human rights activists took the floor to condemn and testify about some of the worst human rights situations around the world and issued a joint call for Internet Freedom around the world."

Cuban dissident Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina was denied an exit visa by the Castro regime despite being invited to attend the Geneva Summit, but the coalition did not stop there and started a campaign for him to attend.

30 NGOs from this Summit called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to intervene on behalf of Cuban human rights defender Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina barred by the Cuban dictatorship from attending this meeting. The Cuban ambassador protested loudly when Hillel Neuer of UN Watch raised the matter in an interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner, but Nestor on the other hand was grateful that the UN Watch representative spoke up for his human rights.

In the end Nestor addressed the summit by phone, and would attend and address the 2012 Summit in person. Still remember the powerful and haunting testimony of Caspian Makan, human rights activist, and fiancé of Neda Agha-Soltan, who was murdered in Iran by pro-regime agents months earlier on June 20, 2009. Another speaker who made a powerful impression was Yang Jianli, activist in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, a former political prisoner, and founder of Initiatives for China and today a friend. The Geneva Summit created network of activists that remain in contact and continue to collaborate.

Cuban human rights defenders and victims of repression have had a voice at this gathering over the past decade to denounce their plight and call for human rights and freedom for Cuba. Former Cuban prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo (2009, 2010), Luis Enrique Ferrer Garcia (2011), Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina (2012), Regis Iglesias (2013), and Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya (2015), human rights defender and daughter of martyred actvist Rosa Maria Paya (2013, 2016), human rights defender Damarys Moya Portieles (2014), human rights defender and social democrat Manuel Cuesta Morua (2015), and former prisoner of conscience, human rights defender and artist Danilo Maldonado El Sexto (2017). 

2013 was the last time I addressed the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy during the fifth edition of the gathering and less than seven months after Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante had been murdered by State Security on July 22, 2012. Present in the room were Rosa María Payá Acevedo, and Regis Iglesias Ramírez of the Christian Liberation Movement. Both had addressed the meeting.

The 5th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy today is an opportunity for reflection. Unfortunately, the human rights situation around the world has not improved over the past five years and in many instances worsened. The question is why? Cuban democratic opposition activist, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, when awarded the Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought on December 17, 2002 observed that “The cause of human rights is a single cause, just as the people of the world are a single people. The talk today is of globalization, but we must state that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights but also the right to remain human will be jeopardized.” The past decade has demonstrated that he was right.

Cuban state security has worked for decades trying to discredit and silence authentic dissident voices and continues to today with their agents and agents of influence.  It is a constant struggle to frustrate their efforts. They are willing to lie, slander, assault and even murder those who have the courage to dissent. The 2012 killings of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero and the aftermath demonstrate this.

For decades Cuban victims of repression said that nobody listened, and in 1987 an award winning documentary titled "Nobody Listened" interviewed Cuban political prisoners and human rights defenders describing the lack of international solidarity.  Over the past ten years thanks to the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy their voices have been heard. 

This is the first reflection on the past decade of Geneva Summits.  The next summit begins on Tuesday, February 20, 2018 at 9:00am. For more information visit the Geneva Summit website here.