Question: Will Russia's removal from the UN Human Rights Council begin a moral renewal of the international body? Answer: Yes, if Cuba is next.

 The UN Human Rights Council failure is a symptom of wider rot in the United Nations, and in Western Democracies more broadly.

The UN Human Rights system's mechanisms have failed to provide an accurate assessment of the dismal human rights situation in Cuba.  Nor is there any mention of the Cuban government's involvement in gross and systematic human rights violations in Venezuela and Nicaragua. The final outcome of the Universal Periodic Review of Cuba was discussed and adopted on September 20, 2018 at the 39th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. 

Cuban human rights defender Sirley Avila Leon, a victim of repression, on September 24, 2018 addressed the UN Human Rights Council four days later on what agents of the Cuban government had done to her.

“On May 24, 2015 living in Cuba I suffered an attack orchestrated by agents of the state, I was attacked with a machete to kill me cutting off my left hand and right shoulder while I covered my head with them, then cut my knees leaving me disabled for life, This was not the first attack I suffered, I was previously attacked several times, physically and verbally by the political police in Cuba: they burned my bed, I suffered arbitrary arrests, death threats, economic damages.  Only for demanding better living conditions for the peasants and their children in a rural area of ​​Las Tunas. My case is not isolated. In Cuba, the state continues to violate the human rights of Cubans, murders, imprisons and banishes those who demand rights and repress their families. To save my life, in 2016 I escaped from Cuba, since then my son, Yoerlis Peña Avila, has been threatened with death and repressed on several occasions. At this moment I fear for his life.”

UN experts continued to whitewash and cover up the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Venezuela.  On February 28, 2019 UN Watch's Hillel Neuer exposed the right to food expert's cover up of the famine in Venezuela.

VIDEO: Today when I asked @UN_HRC "right to food" expert @HilalElver (chosen by the Castro regime) why she ignores the plight of millions of hungry #Venezuela families, she said "there are two sides of this conflict..."@KenRoth, will you condemn this ex-@HRW board member?

1/2 pic.twitter.com/gGOZdmcl6F

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 28, 2019

In  the 1930s in Ukraine "journalist" Walter Duranty helped to cover up the deaths of millions in a famine manufactured by Josef Stalin's regime. That UN Human Rights experts are helping to cover up a famine in Venezuela in the present gave warning to future developments, and the failure of this institution.

Did these outrages change anything the next time Venezuela or Cuba were to be voted onto the UN Human Rights Council in 2019 and 2020 respectively? The short answer is no, but the longer response is even more devastating.

China, Cuba, and Russia elected to the UNHRC in 2020. Venezuela was already a member

In 2020, Cuba got 170 votes out of 192 possible.Twenty two countries did not vote in favor of the Castro regime, but there are 27 member countries of the European Union. One can also count the United States among the votes against. This means that most probably [at least] six members of the European Union voted in favor of the Castro regime," and that runs counter to the shared values of the European Union which include ‘respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.’ Those democracies that voted for a 63 year old communist dictatorship that systematically violates human rights and seeks to undermine international human rights standards, did not live up to those principles.

In addition to Cuba, China and Russia were also elected to the UN Human Rights Council in 2020, and Venezuela had already been a member for a year having been easily re-elected to the Council in 2019.  

On April 7, 2022 the Russian Federation was expelled from the UN Human Rights Council by a full vote of the UN General Assembly. “Today should be a turning point. EU states and others that often defend the election of gross abusers as somehow a good thing have now effectively abandoned that position in favor of a principled approach, more consistent with the rights council’s own membership criteria,” said Hillel Neuer, of UNWatch, who had campaigned for years for Russia's removal.

The next time that Cuba will be subjected to a universal periodic review is in 2023. The last examination did not reflect the human rights situation on the island. The Cuban government corrupted and abused the process turning it into a circus. Havana had flooded the compilation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with front groups celebrating the dictatorship's "human rights achievements" and drowning out the reports by legitimate NGOs. 

Hopefully, the expulsion of Russia will mark a new chapter for the UN Human Rights Council and a time for reflection. “The 158 UN member states who two years ago voted to make Putin a world judge on human rights—and the others who stood by silently—should ask forgiveness from the Ukrainian men, women and children who are now paying the price of Russia’s brutal invasion of their country, in Bucha and elsewhere,” said Neuer.

Now is the time to clean up the dysfunctional UN Human Rights Council, and remove the worse human rights abusers, so that it can carry out its duties at this critical time. This would also symbolize a moral renewal of the United Nations to face the critical challenges to peace that are unfolding on the world stage today.

Vladimir Putin's Russia was first, let the communist dictatorship of Cuba be next to be voted off the UN Human Rights Council. May Cuba's 2023 Universal Periodic Review hold the dictatorship accountable for the atrocities committed between 2018 and 2022.

UNHRC condemns Maduro regime, fact finding mission called for Venezuela, but wider context needed

“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.” - Elie Wiesel

UN Human Rights Council in Geneva condemns Maduro regime.

CubaBrief, September 28, 2019

Good news today from Geneva. The UN Human Rights Council by a vote of 19 in favor, 7 against, and 21 abstentions earlier this afternoon passed a resolution that strongly condemned human rights violations in Venezuela and called for the creation of a fact-finding mission to investigate human rights violations and crimes against humanity that are taking place in Venezuela. Non-governmental organizations had spent years advocating for these measures.

Amnesty calls for looking at Venezuela in a wider context. 

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International welcomed the passage of the resolution. Ms. Guevara-Rosas also urged that "the UN Fact-Finding mission will need to address the wider context in which the policy of state repression takes place."

However both the UN Human Rights Council resolution and the Amnesty International statement fail to mention the negative role Cuban authorities are playing in Venezuela, and this must be taken into account when addressing the "wider context" of what is taking place in Caracas, and in the wider region.

Angus Berwick in the August 22, 2019 Reuters, "Special Report: How Cuba taught Venezuela to quash military dissent" reported that Havana and Caracas signed two agreements in May 2008, that gave Cuba’s armed forces and intelligence services wide latitude in the South American country to:

• Train soldiers in Venezuela 
• Review and restructure parts of the Venezuelan military 
• Train Venezuelan intelligence agents in Havana 
• And change the intelligence service’s mission from spying on foreign rivals to surveilling the country’s own soldiers, officers, and even senior commanders.

Havana Times reported on December 8, 2018 that the Organization of American States Secretary General, Luis Almagro, "assured that there has been a 'Cuban presence' in tortures committed in Venezuela. 'It is estimated that the Cuban presence in Venezuela is 46,000 people, an occupation force that teaches to torture, to repress, to do intelligence tasks, civil documentation, migration.'"

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro says Cubans in Venezuela are an occupation force.

One cannot analyze the "wider context" in Venezuela without taking the disproportionate and negative role of Havana into account. It is also important to take into consideration the practices of the Castro regime in Cuba with respect to human rights because those practices are being implemented in Venezuela.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists in their 2019 report, Cuba is the tenth most censored country in the world. Over the past sixty years the Castro dictatorship has had hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, and there are still prisoners of conscience in Cuba today. In six decades of absolute rule the communist regime only permitted the International Committee of the Red Cross access to Cuban prisons over the course of a few months in 1988-1989. There have been no visits in the past thirty years.

The human rights crisis in Venezuela today is the result of the international community's tolerance,  of the Castro dictatorship, the grave human rights situation in Cuba, and the delusion that Havana can play a constructive role in resolving the crisis. Havana is not part of the solution in Venezuela, but has been deeply involved in creating the human rights crisis there. The international community should call for Cuban troops and spies to leave Venezuela as a positive step to resolving the situation.

Below is the debate over the resolution on Venezuela that was held at the UN Human Rights Council earlier today.

UN Human Rights Council covers up famine in Venezuela & places Che Guevara's image on display

Moral rot at the UN Human Rights Council

Mass murderer's image on display at the UN Human Rights Council

On  the eve of the start of observing the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this blog highlighted some of the shortcomings of the United Nations and called on UN officials to engage in a serious and "profound reflection" on their actions to ensure that they do not continue undermining their own mission.  Sadly, this advise was not heeded.

Ideas have consequences and those ideas are sometimes represented by iconic images. This is the case with the image of Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the philosophy of political action that he advocated and that others seek to emulate.  

SHAME: Giant portrait of the mass murderer Che Guevara now on display at the United Nations in Geneva, home of its ironically-named Human Rights Council. pic.twitter.com/M01fCPMpRs

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 28, 2019

It is disappointing and an outrage that the United Nations Human Rights Council would display the image of Che Guevara. The legacy of Che Guevara is a rejection of international human rights standards.

Consider that Guevara's claim to fame was the role he played along with Fidel and Raul Castro in installing a totalitarian communist regime in Cuba and attempting to spread this model using violent means in Africa and Latin America. Guevara was executed  summarily on October 9, 1967 in La Higuera, Bolivia after he and his band of guerrillas were captured trying to overthrow the government there and install a Castro style regime. His is a legacy of blood and terror that should be lamented not celebrated.

Despite this record, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) decided on June 18, 2013 to add “The Life and Works of Che Guevara” to the World Registrar. UNESCO is providing funds to preserve Che Guevara’s papers.

There are consequences to having Guevara as an exemplar. The UN Human Rights Council's longest-serving official Jean Ziegler is a Che Guevara admirer. Ziegler was appointed to the UNHRC in 2000 at the request of the Castro regime. He also created and won the "Qaddafi Human Rights Prize."

Jean Ziegler, Castro apologist, Guevara admirer, and UN official

This kind of moral bankruptcy extends beyond the symbolic to impacting the lives of millions.

UN experts continue to whitewash and cover up the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Venezuela.  On February 28, 2019 UN Watch's Hillel Neuer exposed the right to food expert's cover up of the famine in Venezuela.

VIDEO: Today when I asked @UN_HRC "right to food" expert @HilalElver (chosen by the Castro regime) why she ignores the plight of millions of hungry #Venezuela families, she said "there are two sides of this conflict..."@KenRoth, will you condemn this ex-@HRW board member?

1/2 pic.twitter.com/gGOZdmcl6F

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 28, 2019

In  the 1930s in Ukraine "journalist" Walter Duranty helped to cover up the deaths of millions in a famine manufactured by Josef Stalin's regime. Today so-called UN Human Rights experts are helping to cover up a famine in Venezuela.

Note to UNESCO and to the UN Human Rights Council:  Che Guevara is still dead. The sooner his ideas join him on the ash heap of history the better for humanity. Perhaps the United Nations should honor and celebrate the life and writings of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas instead.

This would be one step in the direction of the moral regeneration of this international organization.

Cuba’s worsening human rights situation: Machete attacks, more restrictive laws, and zero human rights monitoring

“The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in, becoming narcissistic.”― Rod Serling 
 

Sirley Avila Leon after testifying at the UN Human Rights Council

Cuban human rights defender Sirley Avila Leon, a victim of repression, on September 24, 2018 addressed the UN Human Rights Council on what agents of the Cuban government had done to her.

“On May 24, 2015 living in Cuba I suffered an attack orchestrated by agents of the state, I was attacked with a machete to kill me cutting off my left hand and right shoulder while I covered my head with them, then cut my knees leaving me disabled for life, This was not the first attack I suffered, I was previously attacked several times, physically and verbally by the political police in Cuba: they burned my bed, I suffered arbitrary arrests, death threats, economic damages.  Only for demanding better living conditions for the peasants and their children in a rural area of ​​Las Tunas. My case is not isolated. In Cuba, the state continues to violate the human rights of Cubans, murders, imprisons and banishes those who demand rights and repress their families. To save my life, in 2016 I escaped from Cuba, since then my son, Yoerlis Peña Avila, has been threatened with death and repressed on several occasions. At this moment I fear for his life.”

Sirley had been elected to a local peoples’ power assembly at the municipal level. She thought she could help those who needed help, but the reality of the existing system demonstrated otherwise. 

Sirley Avila Leon following the May 24, 2015 machete attack

Expectations are high that a constitutional “reform” in Cuba and a new president “could help democratize the country,” but instead changes are going in the wrong direction.

The existing constitution in Cuba was not decided in a free and democratic vote nor the “reforms” that are being drafted now. It is taking an existing anti-democratic document and making it even more restrictive. For example, in the old constitution there existed a clause that a citizen initiative required 10,000 signatures for it to be officially recognized, now under the draft of the proposed constitution it raises that requirement to 50,000 signatures. They never thought 10,000 Cubans would sign a document calling for human rights reforms, because of the consequences to the signatory and their families, but with the Varela Project over 30,000 signatures were gathered. In the existing constitution there is a freedom of religion and conscience clause, but in the new draft it is just freedom of religion. Although, in practice, religion in Cuba remains subject to Communist Party control and discrimination.

Raul Castro handed over the office of the presidency to his handpicked successor Miguel Díaz-Canel on April 19, 2018. This was done to give the impression that a transition is underway in Cuba. This is not the case. General Raul Castro remains head of the Cuban Communist Party and in control of the government. General Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas, Raul's son-in-law, runs the economy. Raul Castro's son, Colonel Alexandro Castro, who negotiated the normalization of relations with the Obama Administration is an intelligence officer with close ties to the secret police. Diaz-Canel, like Osvaldo Dorticos who was president of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, answers to General Raul Castro. The succession does not empower Miguel Díaz-Canel but maintains the Castro dynasty in power.

Blanca Reyes, of the Ladies in White with other activists and members of the IACHR

One of the new laws, Decree 349, signed by President Díaz-Canel in April of 2018 further restricts spaces for artists to exercise their vocation. According to Amnesty International:

“Under the decree, all artists, including collectives, musicians and performers, are prohibited from operating in public or private spaces without prior approval by the Ministry of Culture. Individuals or businesses that hire artists without the authorization can be sanctioned, and artists that work without prior approval can have their materials confiscated or be substantially fined. Under the new decree, the authorities also have the power to immediately suspend a performance and to propose the cancelation of the authorization granted to carry out the artistic activity.”

Despite the government of Cuba being a long time and active member of the UN Human Rights Council it has missed opportunity after opportunity to address key human rights issues constructively and worked with other bad actors to weaken international human rights standards and silence human rights defenders. Thankfully, they do not always succeed.

Over the past two weeks at the UN HumanRights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland and the Inter-American Commissionon Human Rights (IACHR) in Boulder, Colorado the human rights situation in Cuba was addressed by Cuban human rights defenders. The testimony and information provided point to human rights worsening in the island nation. 

Sirley Avila Leon addresses the UN Human Rights Council on September 24, 2018

UNHRC

For decades, international human rights monitors have been and continue to be barred from Cuba by the government to evade scrutiny and isolate Cubans. During the adoption of the Universal Periodic Review outcome of Cuba, June 21-25, 2018, Amnesty International raised the issue that Cuba was the only country in the Americas that was closed to them. Later on Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations Office at Geneva replied to Amnesty International’s comment on the refusal to accept monitors in the island, that Cuba did not require such instruments.

In addition to not allowing credible international human rights monitors into the island, the Cuban government has not permitted the existence of an independent national human rights institution in Cuba.

Furthermore, Cuba’s courts remain subordinated to Raul Castro, head of the Cuban Communist Party. This is has had repercussions on the human rights situation in Cuba.

The World Evangelical Alliance informed the UN Human Rights Council that in 2015, two thousand places of worship of a single church union had been threatened with demolition and several places of worship had been destroyed.  Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported that Cuba used a range of measures against religious leaders and human rights defenders.  Arbitrary detention remained a common tactic.  

There are prisoners of conscience in Cuba today. Dr. Eduardo Cardet of the Christian Liberation Movement, jailed since November 30, 2016, under terrible conditions, for his human rights and democracy advocacy for Cubans is one of them.

Tomás Núñez Magdariaga who has been on hunger strike for over 50 days protesting his unjust imprisonment is another. Prisoners of conscience, such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2010 and Wilman Villar Mendoza in 2012, died on hunger strikes.

Extrajudicial killings by the State continue in Cuba, and they are not limited to opposition activists. The case of Mr. Alejandro Pupo Echemendia is a recent and high profile example. Police detained Mr. Pupo Echemendia and took him to a police station in Las Villas Cuba, allegedly for participating in illicit horse races. Eyewitness Abel Santiago Tamayo said Alejandro suffered a panic attack on August 9, 2018, and asked for help. A guard handcuffed Alejandro from behind and began to kick him in the back until he died. Alejandro Pupo Echemendia was 46 years old, a caregiver for the mentally ill in a psychiatric hospital. Government agents placed witnesses and Alejandro's family under duress to retract their statements.

Blanca Reyes, of the Ladies in White, addresses the IACHR

IACHR

One week later, in Boulder Colorado, during the 169^th Period of Sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Cuban independent journalists and human rights defenders presented “Reports on the Criminalization of Social Activists and Journalists in Cuba.”

The representative of the Ladies in White in the United States, Blanca Reyes, denounced the cruelty of the Cuban government and asked for help to free five women from her organization who are presently jailed.

"In Cuba there is a special sign of cruelty of the totalitarian Communist Government against the entire female mass and, in particular, against the Ladies in White," she affirmed. "Women who belong to that organization are imprisoned, they directly suffer the threat of being taken to a cell, they are imposed heavy fines for their public activities and their families, including their children, are also victims of the unpunished conduct of the political police.”

Blanca identified five Ladies in White presently in prison and they are: Martha Sánchez González, Nieves Matamoros, Aimara Nieto Muñoz, Yolanda Santana Ayala and Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda.

Unlike at the UNHRC, the Cuban government does not recognize the competence of the IACHR, despite having been invited to return to the Organization of American States in 2009.

Cuban human rights defender impeded from attending UN-CERD Cuba review

Human rights defenders barred from traveling to human rights forums

The Cuban government has denied human rights defenders the right to travel to attend both the UN Human Rights Council and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights over the past couple of months.

MiriamCardet Concepción, the sister of prisoner of conscience Eduardo Cardet, was not permitted by the Cuban government to travel to attend the IACHR hearing in Boulder, Colorado. She was able, with some difficulty, to send her video testimony that was broadcast during the hearing on Monday, October 1, 2018.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (UN-CERD) met in Geneva on August 15, 2018 to examine racism in Cuba. The Cuban government not only claimed that racism was not a problem in Cuba but also told the UN-CERD that human rights defenders in Cuba face no limitations to exercise their activities. Cuban diplomats assured that there had been no reprisals or harassment of activists.

Cuban human rights defenders Juan Antonio Madrazo and Norberto Mesa, both Cubans of African descent, who were to attend the same session were detained arbitrarilyand banned by Cuban government officials from traveling to Geneva to address the question of racism in Cuba.

Two other Cuban human rights defenders were also barred by the Cuban government from traveling to Geneva to speak at the pre-session to Cuba’s third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in April of 2018.

Pinkwashing

There is one element of the Constitutional reform that has garnered positive international attention and that is an opening to gay marriage. It does not endanger the power monopoly that the regime seeks to preserve. This constitutional initiative by the Cuban government is a textbook example of pinkwashing. It is "the practice of presenting something, particularly a state, as gay-friendly in order to soften or downplay aspects of its reputation considered negative."

The Cuban government’s leadership, who remain in power today, carried out anti-Gay draconian policies in the past, and they are the same ones now advocating for the change on gay marriage in the constitution.

The Cuban government placed Gays and Lesbians in forced labor camps beginning in 1964 in what they called Military Units to Aid Production or UMAPs (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción). These forced labor camps were for those suspected of or found guilty of "improper conduct."  Persons with "effeminate mannerisms": what the Cuban government called "extravagant behavior" were taken to these camps. Twenty years later with the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in Cuba the regime rounded up all who were HIV positive. Cuba is the only nation in the world that mandated universal HIV testing and enforced isolation of all virus carriers in detention facilities from 1986 to 1994.

This is not a Gay-friendly regime, despite the PR offensive.

Conclusion

Cuban human rights defenders continue to be barred from travel, subjected to harassment, arbitrary detentions and targeted for physical attacks ordered by the secret police. There are changes taking place in Cuba, but they are either cosmetic or make the state more repressive with the goal of perpetuating the dynastic rule of the Castro family.

If Cuba is to once again be free then one must understand the difficult existing reality and the challenges confronting the democratic resistance in the island.

The failure of the UN Human Rights Council with regards to assessing human rights in Cuba

Exhibit A and B

Exhibit A

Exhibit B of the failure of the UN Human Rights system has been the failure of its mechanisms to provide an accurate assessment of the dismal human rights situation in the island.  Nor is there any mention of the Cuban government's involvement in gross and systematic human rights violations in Venezuela and Nicaragua. The final outcome of the Universal Periodic Review of Cuba will be discussed and adopted on September 20, 2018 at the 39th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. The next time that such an examination of the island nation will take place will be in 2023. This examination will not reflect the human rights situation in the island. The Cuban government has corrupted and abused the process turning it into a circus. The Cuban government has flooded the compilation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with front groups celebrating the dictatorship's "human rights achievements" and drowned out the reports by legitimate NGOs.

The compilation provided by United Nations agencies is little better with organizations such as UNESCO providing praise for the dictatorship without taking a closer look at official claims on education and healthcare.

Finally the review itself is loaded up by the most repressive states in the world crowding out as much time with praise for the Cuban dictatorship in what amounts to a mutual protection society of the worse of the worse.

If one looks beyond the propaganda and diplomatic maneuvers to the facts then one finds that the government of Cuba has had and continues to have a terrible human rights record in the island.

Over the past four years that the Universal Periodic Review of Cuba carried out at the UN Human Rights Council should be reviewing that countries human rights record: students and professors have been expelled and fired for their political beliefs, non-violent dissidents have been imprisoned for exercising their freedom of expression or refusing to mourn the death of Fidel Castro, the Cuban human rights group, the Ladies in White, have been regularly harassed and physically abused for trying to exercise their right to freedom of association and other dissidents, including a blind dissident, have been victims of brutal violence, with the May 2015 machete attack of Sirley Avila Leon being one of the most dramatic. Not to mention that extrajudicial killings are still taking place.

Alejandro Pupo Echemendia beaten to death on August 9, 2018

Mr. Alejandro Pupo Echemendia was beaten to death by a government agent on August 9, 2018 while in police custody at the Placetas police station, in Las Villas Cuba. Family members were able to photograph the body of the victim at the General Hospital of Placetas "Dr. Daniel Codorniú Pruna". An eye-witness, human rights defenders, and family members have come forward to demand justice, and have been subjected to police harassment, threats, and arbitrary detentions by Cuban State Security to get them to change or withdraw their testimony. 

Dr. Eduardo Cardet Concepción, successor to martyred founding leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Paya, and unjustly jailed since November 30, 2016 was badly beaten, stabbed twice by three prisoners on December 19, 2017, and subjected to a political show trial, sentenced to three years in prison on March 20, 2017. The December attack with a sharp object was most probably engineered by Castro's State Security in order to permanently silence him. The seriousness of the attack was only learned on January 15, 2018 when his wife was finally able to visit him in prison and see the extent of his injuries.  His health has been worsening and he had been refused religious assistance.
 

Dr. Eduardo Cardet and his wife Yaimaris Vecino

On May 26, 2018 the Cuban government suspended visits to prisoner of conscience Eduardo Cardet, and his wife Yaimaris Vecino protested at the time: 

"Today, May 26, we went to the prison in Cuba Si, it was the visit that Eduardo's mother, his sister, my children and I scheduled, and they prevented us from seeing him, the prison authorities alleging  that Eduardo has given "false information" that according to them, the family is spreading and in retaliation suspended visits for six months." Yaimaris went on to say that "this is a new arbitrariness against Eduardo and I seriously fear for his physical integrity."

Thanks to the intercession of the Bishop of Holguin, Eduardo Cardet's family was able to finally visit him on September 13, 2018.  Four months without a visit and weeks without a phone call due to the Cuban government's efforts to silence Dr. Cardet's family's campaign for his release.

It is important to look back beyond the past four years and place them in context, and one should also look beyond the island.

This regime's bad actions extend to the international sphere at high profile venues such as the old United Nations Human Rights Commission and in the present United Nations Human Rights Council. The consequences of the regime's actions extend beyond Cuba and has had an impact on international human rights standards.

ARTICLE 19 and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) condemned a resolution that passed on March 28, 2008 which amended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, as per proposals from the Organisation of Islamic Congress (OIC) and the Cuban delegations eroding and undermining freedom of expression. Both NGOs condemned "the repeated misuse of the Human Rights Council (HRC) process to push for an agenda that has nothing to do with strengthening human rights and everything to do with protecting autocracies and political point scoring."

Consider how the Cuban government has dealt with dissenting voices. Frank Calzon, a Cuban national exiled in the United States, was Freedom House's Washington DC Representative at the UN Human Rights Commission from 1986 to 1997. The Cuban government slandered his good name accusing him repeatedly of being a CIA agent. This continued after Mr. Calzon left Freedom House.

In 2004 Freedom House denounced that "a Cuban delegate punched Mr. Calzon, knocking him unconscious. UN guards reportedly protected him from further assault by additional members of the Cuban delegation. The attack occurred shortly after the Commission passed a resolution critical of Cuba's human rights record." Other members of Freedom House had been subjected to threats and harassment at the UN Human Rights Commission.

If this is what Cuban diplomats do with the eyes of the world on them then what do you think they are doing to Cuban dissidents on the island away from the glare of the cameras?

Perhaps, one day when the current Human Rights High Commissioner is no longer occupying that post these realities will be taken into account instead of the $1,900 dollar donation that earned the dictatorship a positive plug on social media.

This will necessitate understanding how the idea of human rights transitioned from a call for individual liberty from despotic rule to an instrument to white wash tyrannical rule and oppressive regimes.

On human rights and wrongs in Switzerland and Nicaragua

Reflections on the US leaving the UN Human Rights Council and the continuing bloodshed in Nicaragua today.

The decision of the United States to leave the United Nations Human Rights Council today is a mistake. This is not to say that the United Nations Human Rights Council is not a flawed instrument made more ineffective by the dictatorships that sit on the international human rights body. This is not to say that UN bureaucrats have not behaved poorly and are deserving of criticism and at times ridicule, but the answer is not disengage and leave the UN Human Rights Council to all these bad actors but challenge them and present a principled alternative.

The first time the United States withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland was in 2006 and they did not return until 2009, but few remember it. So do the bad actors vying for a seat on the Council.

Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and China are currently on the UN Human Rights Council despite their horrid human rights records. North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Nicaragua have also been member of this human rights body and will be again. They will be able to further leverage their influence on a Council without the United States. It will be a tougher going for victims of repression world wide.

Speaking of victims of repression, while many focused on events in Geneva and in Washington, DC, in Central America a bloody and increasingly dangerous human rights crisis continued to unfold.

In Nicaragua since April 18, 2018 over 200 people have been killed for political reasons. It happened again today in the town of Masaya. The town was once a bastion of support for Ortega and his Sandinista rebels when they overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979, but today it has become a center of resistance to the Ortega regime.

Human rights have been in retreat worldwide for the past twelve years and things are getting worse in many quarters. The United States leaving the UN Human Rights Council does not help to change these trends and only encourages the worse actors to further cripple what was once an august human rights body.

Nicaragua's strongman Daniel Ortega must be stopped https://t.co/aURFRq3f4E pic.twitter.com/AgO6DsCxWx

— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) June 19, 2018

Yes to the UN Human Rights Council and No to UNESCO

 The US should stay in the UN Human Rights Council but leave and defund UNESCO like President Reagan did in 1984.

Stay

 There is a discussion underway on whether or not the United States should remain in the UN Human Rights Council. Recognizing that the UN Human Rights Council was founded on a small moral compromise that sacrificed human rights oversight in Belarus and Cuba in what UN officials called the dawn of a new era; that the worse of the worst have been elected to this human rights body and these bad actors have gutted human rights standards, furthermore that the moral authority of the Council has been compromised and there is an international human rights crisis due to the politicization of human rights by the radical left. This culminated in the UN Human Rights Council paying homage to the memory of Fidel Castro after he died in what was an act of moral corruption. It is understandable why some would want to leave the Council but that would be a mistake.

This ongoing human rights crisis presents an opportunity for conservatives to save international human rights standards. Conservatives must reject the mistaken left wing narrative that claims that human rights emerged out of the French Revolution. The Revolution in France rejected traditions, established truths and declared war on the Church. The end result was terror, genocide and a military dictator (Napoleon Bonaparte) This would involve a public education campaign exploring the roots of modern human rights thought that stretches back to debates within the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and during the European Age of Discovery in the debate over the rights of Native Americans by the Salamanca School following Colombus's arrival in America to British liberties beginning with Magna Carta, conservatives who led the international anti-slavery fight in Great Britain such as William Wilberforce and Edmund Burke's conservative defense of Indian civilization offered an important contribution that considered the role of providence.

Contrast this with the Obama Administration's pursuit of a radical agenda turning human rights upside down: declaring abortion a human right, was on more than one occasion not only on the wrong side of the human rights conversation but also taking (or refusing to take action) at the UN Human Rights Council. The Obama White House praised Raul Castro, refused to defend US sanctions on Cuba, although it is the law, but demonized Israel and and did not support them at the United Nations before resolutions presented by hostile countries. Obama's Cuba legacy is one of legitimizing tyranny, marginalizing dissidents and a dramatic escalation of human rights violations in Cuba. This trend has continued to manifest itself world wide throughout his Presidency with human rights deteriorating over the past eight years. To be fair this trend predated the Obama White House but only worsened during their tenure.

If it were up to me the United States would stay in the UN Human Rights Council but engage in aggressive diplomacy placing the anti-American dictatorships in the Council on the defensive in public debates and in the bureaucracy.

It is China, Cuba and Venezuela that do not belong on the UN Human Rights Council.The world's oldest continuous constitutional democracy, the United States needs to be on the Council to take the fight to human rights violators and expose their hypocrisy.

Nevertheless, the White House should immediately pull out of  UNESCO and defund it. The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is so out of touch with what it mission should be that on June 18, 2013 it added “The Life and Works of Che Guevara” to the World Registrar. UNESCO is providing funds to preserve Che Guevara’s papers. Guevara in addition to promoting communist ideology, is best known as an advocate for guerrilla warfare who viewed terrorism as a legitimate method of struggle against an enemy. U.S. tax dollars are paying for some of this and they shouldn't be.

Ronald Reagan defunded and left UNESCO in mid 1984 because the hard left was using it to spread its anti-American and radical left ideologies but George W. Bush brought the United States back into UNESCO after a twenty year boycott believing it had reformed and took the United States out of the Human Rights Council. Returning to UNESCO was a mistake, the organization is back to its old tricks that are hostile both to U.S. values and national security interests.

Meanwhile leaving the UN Human Rights Council would leave the attacks against the United States in this body unanswered and new resolutions set possibly pernicious to the United States. The Reagan Administration took the offensive on human rights after the US had played defense and they were successful in placing outlaw regimes on the defensive.

Defund and leave UNESCO not the UNHRC