2016 ANNUAL REPORT FROM THE CUBAN HUMAN RIGHTS OBSERVATORY (OCDH) January 4, 2017
INTRODUCTION
2016, which has just come to an end, was a negative year for exercising human rights in Cuba. Unfortunately, progress in the “normalisation” process of relations between the governments of the United States and Cuba, which is now in its third year, did not have a positive effect interms of exercising human rights on the island or economic rights, which underlie the theory that, thanks to the establishment of economic and commercial ties with Cuba, other freedoms will reach Cubans.
The aforementioned limited influence on human rights has also been one of the features of the framework of relations between the European Union and Cuba. The newly approved bilateral agreement crystallises more than a decade of European policy towards Cuba, characterised by a proactive, acquiescent attitude to the actions of the Cuban government in the field of human rights, even when the Common Position was valid at a formal level. We cannot assess the Cuban situation and the effectiveness of international changes related to Cuba from a perspective that does not take into account the exercise of rights and freedoms. That is why we are presenting this overview with several critical points on the state of human rights in Cuba.
Continue to read the report here.
CDV.org: Police station Zanja detention cell in Havana - where many members of the Cuban opposition have spent some time and where the independent journalist Serafin Moran (photographer) spent a few hours together with other black young cubans the days around christmas 2016.
|