Via Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter:

International Human Rights Day in Cuba 2012: A look back

The past year has continued to see a deterioration in human rights in Cuba. It began in January with the terrible news that Wilman Villar Mendoza, another prisoner of conscience, had died while on hunger strike in a Cuban prison demanding that his rights be respected. Unfortunately, Pope Benedict's visit to the island in March coincided with a nationwide crackdown on Cuban dissidents while His Holiness was in Cuba. The aftermath has been even worse. Sergio Díaz Larrastegui, died this past April 19, 2012 at the Julio Trigo Hospital in Arroyo Naranjo in Havana, Cuba. He died in the shadows, under the control of Cuban State Security. Less than three months later, Cuban opposition leader and Catholic Layman Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas along with Harold Cepero from the same movement died under suspicious circumstances that appear to have been provoked by State Security on July 22, 2012. Family and friends are demanding an international investigation into their deaths.

The United Nations conducted a review of torture in Cuba and found much to criticize.

The number of arbitrary detentions in 2012 have skyrocketed compared to previous years. At the beginning of December the number was already at 6,035 detentions.  In November and December of 2012 there were also large scale crackdowns on human rights defenders.

Violence and threats of violence against nonviolent activists and their families continues in Cuba to the present day. An extreme but not atypical example is that of Damaris Moya Portieles who initiated a hunger strike on June 3, 2012 demanding that her 5-year old daughter, Lazara Contreras Moya, be kept safe. This was because state security agents made graphic rape threats to the mother concerning her five year old daughter. The worse of the perpetrators was Eric Francis Aquino Yera. Berenice Héctor González, a 15-year old young woman, suffered a knife attack on November 4, 2012 for supporting the women's human rights movement, The Ladies in White. News of the attack only emerged a month later because State Security had threatened the mother that her daughter would suffer the consequences if she made the assault public. Lady in White Sonia Garro who has on more than one occasion been badly beaten by State Security and her husband have been locked up since March 2012. Unfortunately, when a UN goodwill ambassador visits Cuba to discuss violence against women the above practices by the dictatorship go unaddressed. Dissidents have been beaten up and arrested for addressing national and international bodies.

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