Human Rights in Cuba: An endangered species

Human rights under siege in Cuba for over five decades

Human Rights Defenders in Cuba are a suspect class defined as mercenaries by the regime and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which the Cuban government was a signatory on December 10, 1948 is a subversive document to be confiscated. Thousands of Cubans have been arbitrarily detained in 2012 alone for trying to exercise their human rights. Human rights defenders have been killed while in regime custody or died under suspicious circumstances.

It would not be a stretch to say that human rights are an endangered species in Cuba. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a generation as "the average span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring." A generation is about 30 years.

Cuba has been under some form of dictatorship since March 10, 1952 and under a totalitarian dictatorship since January 1, 1959 that means for the past 61 years human rights have been systematically violated and for the past 54 years human rights discourse has been systematically removed from the public sphere.

This means that two generations of Cubans have been born and grown up in a society where human rights have essentially been unknown. There have been times, especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s when one might have thought human rights in Cuba extinct.

They would be wrong. From inside of the prisons and at the margins of society old activists who remembered and revered the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and new generations of young activists, who although not knowledgeable of the history, found the desire for fundamental human rights hard wired in their conscience.

These factors led to the re-birth of Cuban civil society's defense of human rights in 1976 with formation of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights.

Over the next 37 years what began as a single organization formed behind prison walls and later situated in Havana grew into a nationwide movement and despite the brutal efforts of the dictatorship to destroy it - so far it has survived and thrived because human beings have an innate desire to be free and live with dignity. 

Despite the wishful thinking of the totalitarian despots in Cuba and their allies elsewhere: Cubans are human beings and have a right to their rights.

Courageous Cubans such as Jose Antonio Echeverria, Pedro Luis Boitel, Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, Mario de la Peña,Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Armando Alejandre Jr.,Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Wilman Villar Mendoza, Juan Wilfredo Soto García, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, Harold Cepero Escalante and many more have given their lives in struggle for human rights and freedom in Cuba.  

With their sacrifice the world can bear witness that although endangered the struggle for human rights in Cuba continues via nonviolent means.

Voices in Cuba such as the Cuban rock n roller Ciro Diaz understands this reality and the sacrifice carried out by many and wrote a song about it called "El Precio" (The Price).  Here it is:

Cuban dissident beaten by Castro's police on Thursday dead and buried on Sunday

Juan Wilfredo Soto (dead at 46)

The headlines circled the world in English and in Spanish covered by Reuters, the BBC, CNN, AFP, AP, EFE that a Cuban dissident and former political prisoner, Juan Wilfredo Soto (age 46) had been beaten and arrested by Cuban regime police on Thursday, May 5, 2011 while protesting the dictatorship and died early on Sunday May 8, 2011. The beating had been so bad that he required hospitalization. He was buried on Sunday on Mother's Day.

Dissident Guillermo Fariñas Hernández told AFP: "There is not the slightest doubt that there was a cause and effect, and that Soto's death was related to the beating he was given," and went on to add that "If we do not do something, so that the government changes its stand toward peaceful protesters, we are going to be reporting even more deaths." Yoani Sanchez also describes a trend of increasing violence by police and that complaints against are silenced by fear. Juan Wilfredo prior to his death denounced the threats made against his person by agents of the dictatorship and you can hear him below (in Spanish):

"An official from State Security told me that those 15-days that you supported Coco (Guillermo Fariñas Hernández) will have consequences and be prepared for them." They placed agents outside of his home who spied on him and threatened him. His "support" of Fariñas was to join him in solidarity on a hunger strike demanding the release of unjustly imprisoned Cuban prisoners of conscience following the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo on February 23, 2010.

Juan Wilfredo Soto left behind two children and their mom. He was a member of the Opposition Central Coalition and was known as "The Student." He was a former political prisoner who had served 12 years in prison. His mother, who suffers from a bad hip, buried her son on Mother's Day. Pictures of Juan Wilfredo Soto's family members provided by Yoani Sanchez through twitter taken below:

Juan Wilfredo's son on the right

Juan Wilfredo's son and daughter grieve for their father.

The sad part is that this is not an isolated case. There are others but the regime has been often successful in intimidating family members and destroying the evidence of their crimes. "This act of police violence is not an isolated case. Each day in Cuba those in uniform respect less the citizens," said Yoani Sanchez over Twitter on the day of the burial.

According to dissidents who attended and media accounts more than 80 attended Juan Wilfredo Soto's funeral despite a heavy police presence and state security operation that blocked some activists from attending. The government agents responsible for this man's extra-judicial death must be held accountable if not by national laws then by international law.

Rest in Peace Juan Wilfredo Soto "The Student"