Castro regime joins "axis of shame" at the United Nations trying to cover up Islamic Regime of Iran's human rights violations in Iran.

Good news today for the people of Iran. The Islamic Regime of Iran will have to answer to a fact-finding mission to investigate human rights violations in Iran. The United Nations Human Rights Council voted 25 to 6 to create it, and condemned human rights abuses in Iran.

Bad news for Cuba. 

The Castro regime in Geneva today joined an "axis of shame" with the People's Republic of China, Eritrea, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Venezuela to block the creation of an investigative mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ongoing crimes.

Credit to Hillel Neuer of UNWatch for aptly coining the term Axis of Shame for this deplorable vote, and defense of the Mullahs.

Drama at UNHRC session on Iran: In surprise move, China tries to kill paragraph creating an investigative mission on Tehran regime’s crimes. Totally defeated! 25-6. Only China, Cuba, Eritrea, Indonesia, Pakistan & Venezuela supported it. Axis of Shame. Full text will pass soon. pic.twitter.com/H3pXa9vq2V

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 24, 2022

How it started.

Mahsa Amini beaten and killed by morality police for not properly wearing her hijab.

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was arrested in Iran by the Morality police on September 13, 2022. They beat her badly, left her in a coma, and she died on September 16th. She was beaten to death for not properly wearing her hijab. A little bit of her hair was visible. News of her extrajudicial killing at the hand of agents of the Islamist regime in Iran sparked nationwide protests

Since September 17, 2022, the repressive forces of the Islamist Regime of Iran have killed 440 protesters, and over 18,000 Iranians have been arrested.

This blog has been following events unfolding in Iran over the past two months, and remain horrified at the brutality of the Islamist theocracy in Iran, and the Castro regime's support for this brutal regime that has brutally murdered so many young girls and boys.

We have also joined in protests denouncing these human rights abuses, and calling for a democratic transition in Iran. 

This blog on September 24, 2022 called for readers to listen to Iranian women, and to follow Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih on Twitter and amplify her voice, and that of other Iranian women such as:  Nazanin Nour @NazaninNour, Roya Hakakian @RoyaTheWriter, Nazanin Boniadi @NazaninBoniadi, Nazenin Ansari @NazeninA, Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay @NazaninAJ, and Mariam Memarsadeghi @memarsadeghi. 

This is 7-year-old Hasti Naroei, from Iran's Baluchi minority, who was killed by security forces in Zahedan. She is one of at least 43 children killed in Iran since Sept. Tomorrow at #SS35 the @UN_HRC MUST establish an investigative & accountability mechanism on Iran #مهسا_امینی pic.twitter.com/0aAq2P02jc

— Amnesty Iran (@AmnestyIran) November 23, 2022

Sixty one children have been killed in Iran since September 17th by the Islamist regime. Angelina Jolie posted photos of 35 of them.

Castro regime repeatedly backs Islamist regime in Iran

Over the past two months the Castro regime in Cuba has repeatedly denounced sanctions placed on the Islamist Regime in Iran, and claimed that the protests are not legitimate.

Bruno Rodriguez, the Castro regime's foreign minister on November 16, 2022 and October 24, 2022 over Twitter repeatedly condemned new sanctions placed on Iran by the United States.

The Castro dictatorship's foreign minister met with Tehran's foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on September 26, 2022 in New York City during the UN General Assembly.

Dictatorships' diplomats: Bruno Rodriguez in Cuba and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Iran.

The Cuban dictatorship’s official media is blaming the United States, and other Western Democracies for the protests in Iran. The mullahs did the same for Havana during the nationwide protests that erupted in Cuba on July 11, 2021.

The communist regime in Havana and the Islamist regime in Tehran have had close and problematic relations for over four decades, and they are both hostile to the United States.

Fidel Castro visited Iran on May 10, 2001, four months before the September 11, 2001 attacks, where he was quoted by the Agence France Presse at the University of Tehran stating that "Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees." ... "The U.S. regime is very weak, and we are witnessing this weakness from close up." 

Fidel Castro speaks with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran May 9, 2001.

Eleven years later on January 12, 2012 in Havana, Cuba the controversial president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared "Our positions, versions, interpretations are alike, very close. We have been good friends, we are and will be, and we will be together forever."

Raul Castro with Islamic Republic of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Both Havana and Tehran have close relations with the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. The Jerusalem Post reported on October 16, 2022 that Hezbollah was helping the Islamist regime quash protests in Iran. Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah referred to Amini’s death as a “vague incident”and that the protests did not reflect the true will of the Iranian people, according to The Jerusalem Post.

While the Castro regime backs the Mullahs in Tehran against the Iranian people, Cuban women on November 1, 2022 called on President Biden to back the expulsion of "the murderous Iranian regime from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women." One of the signers of the letter to the President, Sirley Avila Leon, on November 19, 2022 at a protest for freedom in Iran at the Torch of Friendship in Miami.

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 High Commissioner for Human Rights is calling on UN and international community to take urgent, “concrete action” to address Nicaragua crisis

Will the world listen?

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, called today for the UN and international community to take urgent, “concrete action” to address the human rights crisis in Nicaragua.  The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report today on the situation in Nicaragua titled "Human rights violations and abuses in the context of protests in Nicaragua 18 April – 18 August 2018."

The following series of tweets by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights speaks volumes.

«Repression & retaliation against demonstrators continue in #Nicaragua as the world looks away. I urge @UN_HRC & the int'l community to take concrete action to prevent the crisis from descending into deeper social & political turmoil» — UN rights #Zeid: https://t.co/V7JD6kBtib pic.twitter.com/OBqD1odKBh

— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) August 29, 2018

These are a remarkable series of tweets that indicate that events in Nicaragua are reaching a desperate state. Nevertheless the number of extrajudicial killings in the tweet below are much lower than current reports that place them at over 450.

#HumanRights crisis in #Nicaragua ➡️ some 300 people have reportedly been killed and 2,000 others injured, according to various sources. Most of the violence took place from mid-April to mid-July 2018. Read: https://t.co/V7JD6kBtib pic.twitter.com/Eu63qeVtZD

— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) August 29, 2018

The exodus from Nicaragua is another sign of the draconian and repressive measures of the Sandinista regime led by Daniel Ortega.

#Nicaragua – action & accountability needed. Many people who participated in April protests, defended #HumanRights or expressed dissenting views, have been forced to hide/leave the country or are trying to do so – UN report: https://t.co/V7JD6kBtib pic.twitter.com/4SKcdhPaQE

— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) August 29, 2018

One question that lingers and is cause for concern is that  Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein will soon leave and be replaced by former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who has a track record of looking the other way on human rights abuses in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.  

Ortega continues the violent crackdown as Nicaragua's bishops place themselves in harms way calling for nonviolence

The Ortega regime unmasked.

Pro-government sniper in Masaya on June 20 reports Tim Rogers.

Situation in Nicaragua continues to worsen with violence escalating along with the number of extrajudicial killings carried out by snipers and paramilitary gangs working in concert with the police. Most likely over 200 have been killed and more than a thousand injured. The Ortega regime has revealed its true colors.

Another video clearly showing police working with hooded paramilitary. This was the combination that burnt alive a family of six on Saturday, according to eyewitnesses; again spreading terror through Masaya today #SOSNicaragua pic.twitter.com/8SjAb93PYA

— Toby Stirling Hill (@TobyStHill) June 21, 2018

Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International explains the sinister nature of the Nicaraguan regime's call to dialogue: "The upsurge of violence and attacks against civilians by Nicaraguan government agents and pro-government armed groups acting with their acquiescence in recent days highlights President Ortega’s insincerity and lack of commitment to resolving this crisis peacefully."

Freedom House yesterday over social media placed the tally in lives taken and people injured. "Two months after the start of the protests in Nicaragua, there are at least 178 dead and more than 1,000 injured. International organizations such as the IACHR have warned of possible extrajudicial executions."

"Time is running out for Ortega," @mateojarquin tells @FrancoisF24 as unrest continues to destabilize #Nicaragua. @France24_en pic.twitter.com/kU9mGkRaTz

— Van Meguerditchian (@ReelPolitiks) June 20, 2018

The international community is reacting and demanding an end to the violence. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva is calling for an international commission to investigate the political violence in Nicaragua. 

Meanwhile the Catholic Church in Nicaragua in taking on a heroic role.  This morning over social media the auxilary bishop of Nicaragua tweeted that "Cardinal Leopoldo J. Brenes, Archbishop of Managua, and this servant, Silvio J. Báez, as Auxiliary Bishop, and all the clergy of Managua, will go this morning to Masaya and Monimbo. We want to stop another massacre, comfort our people and pray with them."

At 6:18pm Silvio J. Báez, the auxilary bishop of Nicaragua, tweeted images from their visit to the city targeted in recent days for massacres by the Ortega regime explaining that "the bishops of Managua and the Nuncio this morning visited the suffering city of Masaya, we prayed with our people and we brought them the consolation of God."

Catholic bishops visit Masaya to comfort and pray with the residents.

Agence France Press (AFP) provided the following reporting on what had led to the visit.

Funerals were held for three people killed in clashes in the flashpoint city on Tuesday, bringing to 187 the number killed since protests against Ortega's government began on April 18. At least 23 people have been killed in Masaya, 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the capital Managua. Riot police and paramilitaries had deployed Tuesday in the historically combative city after its declaration of rebellion.

Bishop Silvio J. Báez brought a message of non-violence and a call for an end to the killings that AFP reported as follows.

Managua's auxiliary bishop Silvio Baez called on the crowd not to take justice into their own hands, "not to imitate the same attitudes and criminal acts" as the government forces. "We do not want more criminals in Nicaragua," said Baez, a harsh critic of the government. "I want to remind you of one of God's commandments." "Thou shalt not kill." "To the snipers, to Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo: Not one more death," he said. 

A powerful message backed with the courageous action of accompanying a people under threat of imminent government violence.  

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

Universal Periodic Review: A review of the Castro dictatorship's desperate actions to cover up its dismal record

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” – Elie Wiesel

Castro regime delegation undergoes the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva

Today the third Universal Periodic Review of Cuba took place at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.  It was a circus.

The Castro regime cannot debate the facts. Instead it tries to flood the process with propaganda to drive out serious reports presented by non-governmental organizations, block dissidents from traveling to attend the review, and limit the time that democratic member states have to raise questions with cheer-leading by repressive regimes that take up time and limited interventions to 50 seconds.

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch exposed the rampant cheating of the Cuban government to avoid being evaluated during the Universal Periodic Review.

Fraud: #Cuba mocked the @UN's review of its human rights record today by submitting hundreds of fake NGO submissions hailing the repressive regime's human rights record, including from the "Cuban Federation of Canine Sports." Story by @EFEnoticias: https://t.co/eI1yZieBDo #UPR30 pic.twitter.com/OCNVCfK62v

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) May 16, 2018

When that fails and serious issues are raised the representatives of the dictatorship engaged in ad hominem attacks such as guilt by association to generate confusion in order to not have to answer the tough questions on its systematic violation of human rights.

According to the representatives of the Castro regime the only Cubans that can be called human rights defenders are those who fight for the revolution, i.e. the 59 year old communist dictatorship that has turned Cuba into an Orwellian nightmare. 

But when Sirley Avila Leon, who believed the promises of the revolution, sought to see them fulfilled and went through the official channels to open a school for Cuban children she was shunned, marginalized, harassed, and was nearly killed in a machete attack in 2015. Following the attack state security let doctors know that she was not to be treated.

When Dr. Eduardo Cardet, a medical doctor, followed the existing constitution to effect changes to improve the human rights situation in the island, restoring sovereignty to Cubans, and expressed his views he was beaten up, jailed and sentenced to three years in prison.

The claim by the Castro regime that it is committed to human rights is false. The dictatorship in Cuba has spent decades undermining international human rights standards. They even defended right-wing military dictatorships from being condemned at the UN Human Rights Commission and in the 1960s recruited former Nazis to train their officials.

Gabriel Salvia of the Center for Opening and Development of Latin America ( CADAL in Spanish) tweeted about the complicity of the Castro regime with the Argentine military junta and I translated it to English.

T @GabrielSalvia To the jack asses of @CubaMINREX I remind you that @FreedomHouse rated our military dictatorship between 1977 & 1978 along with Cuba, as not free. They are coherent & you refrained from condemning our dictatorship & invited Videla to the NOAL summit in Havana. https://t.co/kgBrzzUIdc

— John Suarez ن (@johnjsuarez) May 17, 2018

The Castro regime runs roughshod over human rights in Cuba, and spends an exorbitant amount of money to cover up its repressive nature. In the current worsening international human rights climate
there may not be much that can be done, but one must speak truth to power and protest. Let the world know the cynical  nature of this exercise.

T @RosaMariaPaya #CYNICS Dictatorship dares to say it respects the right to life while it still does not respond to state killings committed on the island, including attack against my father #OswaldoPaya & Harold Cepero, nor does it allow an impartial investigation. #UPR #UPRCuba https://t.co/IobftcRgwf

— John Suarez ن (@johnjsuarez) May 16, 2018

Human Rights in Cuba: Shadow UPR and three Cubans killed during the span of the current review

 “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” - Flannery O'Connor

Over the past few days this blog highlighted three cases from the past four years that highlight the cruelty of the Castro regime: in 2014 a blind attorney beaten down by state security agents; in 2015 a human rights defender and mother lost her hand and the use of her knees in a machete attack ordered by regime agents in reprisal for trying to keep a school open; and in 2016 a Cuban doctor was beaten down in front of his wife and children and taken to prison where he remains today suffering assaults and ill treatment for giving his honest opinion of the legacy of Fidel Castro.

Today in Geneva, Switzerland just steps away from where the Universal Periodic Review will be held on May 16th there was a self-described "Shadow UPR" that highlighted more recent cases, and the steps taken by the dictatorship in Cuba to avoid being held accountable. Below are the videos of the entire event and are worth watching.



Sadly there are those who will be unable to do so because they were victims of extrajudicial killings carried out by agents of the Castro over the past four years. Below are three cases, but sadly there are more.

Yunisledy Lopez Rodriguez: Brutally murdered at age 23 in 2014

Yunisledy Lopez Rodriguez was 23 years old, the mother of two small children and she lived in Vista Alegre, in the Municipality of Majabiquoa in Las Tunas, Cuba. She had suffered harassment from state security agents, who had wanted to evict her and her children from their home for her activism in the Civics and Truth movement.

Yunisledy found out that her then boyfriend "Ruber" had been given the order to kill Cuban dissident Sirley Avila Leon by state security. Yunisledy immediately told Sirley Avila Leon of the danger and on May 21,  2014 when Sirley's home was set on fire formally complained to the police. She reported that her partner had told her that he would murder Sirley and that through the above action had attempted to carry it out. The police never made a pronouncement on the matter and did nothing. 

Afterwards "Ruber" warned Yunisledy and told her that if she did not want to be killed that she should join him in Camaguey where he had been given the possibility to work as a "cuenta propista"  as a reward for carrying out his arson attack against Sirley Avila Leon and to give the impression that he was in a prison elsewhere. [This is an aspect of the job sector opportunities that Amnesty missed in their report.]

She  denounced the new threat to the police but no action was taken against him and he went away. After two months approximately September 20-21, 2014, another man,  the father of her young son appears at her home and tells her that he'll kill her. But instead rapes her in front of her children and leaves.

Immediately she went to the police and made a complaint because he was supposedly a prison escapee, but the police took no action. They told her not to worry that he was already back in prison. Yunisledy called Sirley on September 24, 2014 and told her that they both knew why he was being sent to kill her. Yunisledy asked Sirley to care for her children because she had no police protection.

On September 26, 2014 while preparing food for her children the individual known as "El Tejon" entered the house and stabbed her 18 times in front of her two kids. This was done to give the appearance of a crime of passion.

Diosbel Díaz Bioto killed on December 16, 2014

 On December 16, 2014 the Cuban coastguard ram and sank a boat with 32 refugees, one of them, Diosbel Díaz Bioto, was killed. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." This is completely and systematically violated in Cuba. 

Yuriniesky Martínez with his dad, son, and on (right) how he was found in 2015

Yuriniesky Martínez Reina (age 28) was killed by state security chief Miguel Angel Río Seco Rodríguez in the Martí municipality of Matanzas, Cuba on April 9, 2015 for trying to leave Cuba. He was part of a group of young men who were building a boat near Menéndez beach to flee the island, when they were spotted trying to leave and were shot at by state security. Yuriniesky was shot in the back and left to die.  He was found face down in some brush.

Call for UN officials to reflect on their obligations on International Human Rights Day

“It was never the people who complained of the universality of human rights, nor did the people consider human rights as a Western or Northern imposition. It was often their leaders who did so.”

Mr. Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General

On Sunday, December 10, 2017 the United Nations will begin a year long effort to honor and celebrate the 70th anniversary in 2018 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein recognizes that “we should be under no illusions: the legacy of the Universal Declaration is facing threats on many fronts.”

Unfortunately one of those fronts is the United Nations itself.

Three times in 2016 the United Nations honored an enemy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when the international body on December 1, 2016 at the United Nations General Assembly held a moment of silence for Fidel Castro in New York City. Five days later on December 6, 2016 at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva Switzerland another moment of silence was held for Fidel Castro ignoring the dictator's terrible human rights record. Two weeks later on December 20, 2016 the General Assembly of the United Nations once again paid tribute to the dead Cuban tyrant. Paying homage to this murderous dictator multiple times undermines a central pillar of the United Nations and that is the defense of human rights.

Since 1959, Cuba has under the Castro brothers been subjected to a Marxist Leninist dictatorship that does not recognize international human rights standards as outlined in the declaration the UN wishes to honor over the course of 2018. Fidel Castro in a 1986 interview addressed the matter:

"Bourgeois liberties, no. We have two different concepts of freedom. Europeans have one, we have another.  Capitalism and socialism are not at all alike. Your political concepts of liberty, equality, justice are very different from ours. You try to measure a country like Cuba with European ideas. And we do not resign ourselves to or accept being measured by those standards."

The claim by Mr. Castro that bourgeois liberties are alien to the Cuban experience because they emerged in Europe is not correct. The synthesis of civil-political and socioeconomic rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Europeans subscribe to  emerged out of the Latin American experience. Furthermore, it was Latin American diplomats that pushed hard for a human rights charter following World War II and the first international human rights charter was a regional one The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man that was adopted in Bogota, Colombia on May 2, 1948.

Banned in Cuba as enemy propaganda

The Castro regime has banned and censored the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Cuba, presented copies of the declaration in criminal cases against nonviolent dissidents, and internationally has sought to undermine international human rights standards. This has led to the gutting of international human rights standards and hobbled independent UN officials with a Code of Conduct in 2007 that provides leverage to outlaw regimes on the UN Human Rights Council.  On March 28, 2008 the Castro regime’s delegation together with the Organization of Islamic Congress (OIC) successfully passed resolutions undermining international freedom of expression standards at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

This led to the spectacle in July of 2017 of  Virginia B. Dandan, the United Nations "independent" expert on human rights and international solidarity who visited Cuba, a totalitarian dictatorship, and at a press conference when asked if she would meet or consult with the democratic opposition stated: "I do not know what you mean by opposition. I honestly do not know who is in the opposition." 

There have been members of the democratic opposition who have achieved international recognition. For example Cuban democratic opposition leader Oswaldo Payá received the Sakharov Prize in 2002 and addressed members of the the European Parliament on December 17, 2002 presenting his nonviolent vision for change.

The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: “You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together.” This is the liberation which we are proclaiming.

Oswaldo was killed, along with Harold Cepero, on July 22, 2012 in what appears to have been an extrajudicial killing organized by state security. 

Oswaldo's successor, Eduardo Cardet, was arrested on November 30, 2016 for offering a critical assessment of Fidel Castro's legacy.  Lamentably Ms. Dandan did not know of his existence despite Mr. Cardet being an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. 

This led an opposition publication to publish an oped titled: "Virginia Dandan, the expert who does not ask questions."

.@nikkihaley @antonioguterres @MatthewRycroft1 I urge you not to be silent as a United Nations official—a notorious Maduro apologist appointed by Cuba—betrays ideals of the world body by conducting fraudulent examination of Venezuela's human rights record. https://t.co/PwBP0AtutU

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 30, 2017

In November of 2017 the visit of Alfred de Zayas, the UN "expert on promotion of a democratic and equitable international order” to Venezuela was questioned by UN Watch because of his track record of  overt support for the Chavista regime in Venezuela and Castro regime in Cuba. UN Watch observed that "after 15 years of [Venezuela] rejecting repeated requests by separate monitors on arbitrary detention, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, independence of the judiciary and arbitrary executions." 

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is right when he says that:“[w]e must organize and mobilize in defence of human decency, in defence of a better common future… We must take a robust and determined stand: by resolutely supporting the human rights of others, we also stand up for our own rights and those of generations to come.” 

Unfortunately, sending experts who will look the other way or only repeat regime talking points falls far short of defending human dignity and decency. Nor does honoring tyrants and dictators.

Sadly, the United Nations paid homage in December 2016 on three occasions to a dictator who spent a lifetime undermining the human rights of others. Cuban human rights defenders were imprisoned for offering a critical assessment of Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba while the UN stood in silence to honor the systematic human rights violator. 

UN officials should engage in a serious and "profound reflection" on their actions to ensure that they do not continue undermining their own mission. 

Fidel Castro and the moral corruption of the United Nations

"If we decide to carry out terrorism, it is a sure thing we would be efficient. But the mere fact that the Cuban revolution has never implemented terrorism does not mean that we renounce it. We would like to issue this warning."  - Fidel Castro, Address to the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) 1976 




Fidel Castro, the Cuban tyrant, who presided over the extrajudicial execution of thousands of his countrymen, the destruction of Cuba, twice called for a nuclear first strike on the United States, sponsored terrorism across the world, collaborated with genocidal dictators who murdered millions in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East died last month at age 90 has twice been honored at important bodies of the United Nations in the past month. 

"Mourning" Fidel Castro in Cuba, like Josef Stalin in Russia and Kim il Jong in North Korea had serious consequences for those who failed have the proper level of grief for the departed tyrant. Sadly, where the consequences are nowhere near as dire the Venezuelan delegation in Geneva and Cuban delegation in New York City was able to morally compromise to important UN bodies.

First on December 1, 2016 the United Nations General Assembly held a moment of silence for Fidel Castro in New York City. Five days later on December 6, 2016 at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva Switzerland a moment of silence was held for Fidel Castro. Two weeks later on December 20, 2016 the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City paid tribute to the dead Cuban dictator for the third time.

Presiding the special commemorative event to pay tribute to Fidel Castro Ruz, organized by the Permanent Mission of Cuba pic.twitter.com/yI2M511WoB

— UN GA President (@UN_PGA) December 20, 2016

Both of these actions are not only depraved but point to a deep lack of moral discernment at the United Nations. Fidel Castro's record is well documented. The Castro regime broadcast its mass executions at the start of the dictatorship in 1959 to terrorize the populace. The broadcasts of the executions ended but the firing squads continued  until at least 2003. There have also been extrajudicial killings of nonviolent opposition leaders over the past five decades with Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero in 2012 being two recent examples. Dissidents have been the targets of violence, including brutal machete attacks in order to silence them. The case of Sirley Ávila León in 2015 is a sobering example.

2012 funeral of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas following his extrajudicial killing

The United Nations Human Rights Council should hold a moment of silence for the victims of Castroism not their mass murdering dictator. The UN General Assembly should pay tribute to Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas not the tyrant who ordered his murder. 

The late Czech dissident, poet and former president Václav Havel understood and warned of the dangers of making small, moral  compromises in October of 2009: "There arises a question as to whether those large, serious compromises do not have their origin and roots in precisely these tiny and very often more or less logical compromises." . 

Those who know the facts of what has gone on in Cuba over the past six decades need to continue tell the whole truth to the world despite the moral failings of international bodies and organizations such as the United Nations.