OAS Conference, Human Rights in Cuba – OAS

Conferencia OEA, Derechos Humanos en Cuba – OAS
22 January, 2019
Conferencia de prensa en Berlin Cuba Decide
22 January, 2019
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Almagro said that Cuba exports “mechanisms of terror” to Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), considered necessary to question the legitimacy that “the oldest dictatorship in the continent” has achieved internationally

The Organization of American States (OAS) hosts a conference on human rights in Cuba on Friday.

The OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro, said that this event marks the beginning of a firm and continuous process to denounce the Cuban regime.

In his inaugural address, Almagro said that “it is time to raise awareness of the illegitimacy of the hemisphere’s oldest dictatorship.”

The secretary general assured that the OAS is in the duty to denounce that the Cuban regime violates the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

Almagro today accused the Cuban regime of exporting “terror mechanisms” to other countries in Latin America, such as Venezuela and Nicaragua, where Cuban citizens allegedly directed “tortures.”

Almagro inaugurated a conference on human rights in Cuba at the OAS “denouncing and bringing to the surface the mechanisms of terror and repression that Cuba uses against its own people and silently exports to the rest of the region,” he said in his opening speech.

The head of the OAS said that they have received complaints from people in Nicaragua and Venezuela, who say they were tortured in the presence of Cuban nationals.

The conference addresses issues such as the criminalization of freedom of expression in Cuba, the situation of political prisoners and the responsibility of the oppressors for the acts committed.

The agenda of this meeting:

9:30 a.m. Opening:

Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS.

10:00 am Session 1: General situation of human rights in Cuba

Rosa María Payá, Cuba Decide
Martha Beatriz Roque, Cuban activist and economist
Laritza Diversent, Legal Information Center, Cubalex
Paulo Abrao, executive secretary of the IACHR

11:00 am. Session 2: Impunity for the repressors in Cuba

René Bolio, president of Justicia Cuba, and Orlando Gutiérrez, adviser to Justicia Cuba, will present a report on the work of the organization. Then, the commissioners of Justice Cuba, René Bolio, Jorge Villena, Jianli Yang, Hipólito Ramírez and María de los Milagros Méndez will listen to the testimonies of:

Bertha Antúnez, Cuban Democratic Directorate
Jorge García, researcher and member of the family of victims of the sinking of the tugboat March 13, 1996
Pedro Corzo, researcher and political express
Sylvia Iriondo, MAR for Cuba

2:30 pm. Session 3: Criminalizing freedom of expression in Cuba

Edison Lanza, special rapporteur on freedom of expression, IACHR
Pablo Díaz Espí, Journal of Cuba
Waldo Fernando Cuenca, Cuban freelance journalist

3:30 pm. Session 4: Restrictions on the defense of human rights in Cuba

Carlos Oliva, UNPACU
Berta Soler, Ladies in White
Iván Hernández Carrillo, opponent and trade unionist
Carlos Quesada, Institute of Race, Equality and Human Rights

4:30 pm. Session 5: Situation of political prisoners

Blanca Reyes, Ladies in White
Alejandro González Raga, political express
Julio Ferrer Tamayo, Cubalex
Adolfo Fernández, UNPACU and political express
Cuba was expelled from the OAS, in 1962, during a meeting held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, where the member states declared that the continental unit and the democratic institutions of the region were in danger due to the intensification of “the subversive offensive of governments communists, their agents and the organizations controlled by them.”

Source: INFOBAE

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