I imagine this denunciation would carry some weight if it were not for the fact that it is coming from the same United Nations that appointed the genocidal African dictator Robert Mugabe as a UN Tourism Ambassador.
Juan Tamayo in the Miami Herald:
UN panel blasts Cuba on human rights abuses
THE U.N. called Friday for an independent body to gather, investigate and report on complaints of human rights abuses in Cuba.
The U.N.’s Committee Against Torture hammered Cuba on Friday for a lengthy string of human rights abuses and repeatedly complained the island had provided few or none of the details about specific allegations of abuses that it had requested.
The panel noted that it was “concerned by reports denouncing the use of coercive methods during (police) interrogations, particularly the denial of sleep, detention under conditions of isolation and exposure to sudden changes in temperatures.”
On Cuba’s prisons, it wrote that it “continues to be supremely concerned by the reports received about the … overcrowding, malnutrition, lack of hygiene and healthy conditions (and) adequate medical attention.”
There have been thousands of complaints of short-term detentions of dissidents, it added, singling out José Luis Ferrer García and Oscar Elias Biscet. And Cuban officials never explained the deaths of dissidents Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Juan Wilfredo Soto García.
Cuba should establish an independent body to gather, investigate and report on allegations of government abuses, and should meet its promise to allow a visit by the U.N.’s top official on several types of mistreatments, the committee noted in a 6,000-word report.
The report summed up the panel’s conclusions after its May 22-23 hearings in Switzerland on Cuba’s compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Marked “unedited,” it was issued by the U.N. media office in Geneva.
Using the U.N.’s typically diplomatic language, the report noted the panel “laments,” “expresses concern,” “still worries,” “disagrees,” “has serious reservations,” “views with concern,” “considers it indispensable” and is “seriously concerned.”
But the report Friday amounted to a harsh and detailed indictment of Cuba’s human rights record, especially in areas that involve physical punishments or abuses, such as the justice and prison systems and the harassment of dissidents.
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