Paya calls on U.N. Human Rights Council not to be accomplice of Cuban regime

Havana, Cuba, Mar 17, 2009 / 18:59 pm

The president of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Paya, has sent a message to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, calling on the body not to be accomplices of the Communist government “with its silence and its scandalous refusal to demand” respect for human rights in Cuba.

In an extensive message to the commission, Paya said even the General Assembly and many other institutions “harm the people of Cuba” by their silence in the face of little or no progress in the area of human rights on the island.

For this reason, he called on the Commission to ask the government of Raul Castro to publish within the country “the Universal Declaration and the instruments of Human Rights that it has recently signed and that it make a commitment to the people to fulfill them.”

With the recent declaration in mind, he denounced the Cuban government’s continual actions against human rights, such the March 2002 arrest of more than fifty people for disagreeing with the government and demanding that human rights be respected on the island nation.

Paya also noted that the Department of Religious Affairs has put pressure on Church leaders and that government control extends to every block, every school, every university and place of employment “and in all areas of society.”

Paya also raised the U.S. embargo of Cuba and called for it to be lifted. Immediately and unconditionally canceling the embargo is “just and necessary…because it is the people of Cuba who are suffering from its effects and it does not constitute a factor for positive change,” he said.