Cuban dissidents and the Center for a FREE Cuba attended the 2023 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, where they called attention to the human rights abuses taking place in communist Cuba.
Via the Center for a FREE Cuba:
Report from the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy
Over two days in Geneva, Switzerland the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy convened its opening session on May 16, 2023 in the Palais des Nations, where the UN Human Rights Council meets, and on May 17th held the all day summit at The International Conference Center Geneva (CICG).
The Center for a Free Cuba (CFC) as one of 25 partner organizations, is proud to see Cuban dissidents at the 15th annual gathering in Geneva, Switzerland. Over the past 15 years Cuban dissidents, and former political prisoners have spoken at the Geneva Summit. This is the second year that CFC is a partner organization of the Summit.
This year Cuban independent journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa addressed the Geneva Summit, and one day earlier was interviewed by CFC’s executive director. In his address to the Summit he touched on the totalitarian nature of the Cuban Communist Party.
“The Communist Party, beyond being the only political organization allowed in the country, is the only one that runs all the newspapers, all the magazines, all the radios and all the television channels, therefore, the Cuban media does not do journalism, but propaganda”, said the exiled journalist in his speech. The grandson of one of Fidel Castro’s bodyguards recounted that “in a house surrounded by photographs of Castro and Che Guevara” he wrote his first articles, which tried to bring to light “all the dark areas” of his country, “that had been hidden for more than six decades.”
Our coalition announced on May 2, 2023 that its prestigious women’s rights award would go “to Shima Babaei, an exiled Iranian women’s rights activist and former political prisoner, in tribute to the courageous women and girl protesters of Iran.” On November 1, 2022 prominent Cuban American women in an urgent appeal asked President Biden to remove “the murderous Iranian regime from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.” This was an act of solidarity with the Iranian opposition that was carrying out the campaign at the time. Iran was removed from the Commission on December 14, 2022.
On May 4, 2023 this cross-regional coalition of 25 human rights organizations announced that its prestigious Courage Award would go this year to Félix Maradiaga, a leading Nicaraguan opposition politician who was released in 2023 after being subjected to 611 days in prison and solitary confinement.
CFC’s executive director sat down with Félix Maradiaga in a short interview in which the former Nicaraguan prisoner of conscience answered the following questions.
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