HUMAN RIGHTS ROUND UP JANUARY 2009

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HAVANA 000053 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/26/2014 TAGS: CU PGOV PHUM PINR PINS PREL SUBJECT: HUMAN RIGHTS ROUND UP JANUARY 2009 Classified By: COM Jonathan Farrar for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. SBU) POLICE BRUTALLY SUPPRESS PEACEFUL PROTEST: On January 11, police forcefully stopped a protest in the park of Santiago de las Vegas in the municipality of Boyeros, Havana Province. Protesters had gathered to demand the release of political prisoners and to honor the memory of Miguel Valdes Tamayo, now deceased, one of 75 dissidents arrested in 2003. The demonstrators had just begun to march silently with crossed arms when a group of police vehicles surrounded them. One of the marchers, Tomas Ramos Rodriguez, age 65 and suffering from Parkinson's Disease, told Poloff that a state security official hit him on the side of the head, and knocked him to the ground. He showed poloff a series of bruises down his leg that he said members of state security inflicted by kicking him when he was on the ground. Ramos also said that they ripped off of him a T-shirt of the campaign for the abolishment of Cuba's dual currency system. Ramos stated that police beat and kicked many demonstrators, both men and women. 41 people were detained for several hours and then released without charges. Police escorted the organizer of the march, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez ("Antunez"), back to his hometown of Placetas in the Province of Santa Clara. "Antunez" has been detained twice since this march, the last time on January 19, when police held him for two days when he attempted to travel to Havana to attend the USINT presidential inauguration event. ¶2. (U) STATE SECURITY CONFISCATES EQUIPMENT OF INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS; State Security agents stopped five independent journalists after they attended a ceremony at the PAO residence to mark the completion of a distance learning course in journalism held under the auspices of Florida International University. The state security agents confiscated the cameras of Jorge Alain Cantero, Francisco Chaviano, Edgard Lopez Morero, and Heriberto Larrinaga. The political police brought Oscar Mario Gonzalez to the local police station and confiscated a digital recorder and the certificate he had received for completing the course. Gonzalez was released later without charges. ¶3. (U) RELEASE OF ONE OF THE 75 DISSIDENTS ARRESTED IN 2003: On January 15, Reynaldo Labrada Pena, one of the 75 dissidents arrested in a massive crackdown in 2003, was released. Like virtually all of the recently released political prisoners, Labrada Pena had served his entire sentence. Labrada Pena had worked on Oswaldo Paya's Varela Project, a petition drive designed to use existing Cuban law to bring about a change in the government. 54 of the original 75 dissidents remain in prison. ¶4. (U) DISSIDENT DOCTOR UNABLE TO GAIN AN INTERVIEW WITH ARGENTINE PRESIDENT: Dr Hilda Molina, a prominent neuro-surgeon who has sought and been denied permission to leave Cuba for the past 15 years, was unable to speak with visiting Argentine President Cristina Fernandez during her January 18-22 visit to Cuba. In her request for an appointment, Dr Molina stressed that she was asking for the right to visit her son, a naturalized Argentine citizen, and her daughter-in-law and grandchildren who are Argentine citizens, as well as her mother who was allowed to depart Cuba in May 2008 as a parent and grandparent, and not as a dissident. ¶5. (SBU) CUBAN FOREIGN MINISTRY ANNOUNCES PLANS TO PARTICIPATE IN UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL REVIEW: The Cuban Foreign Ministry (MINREX) convoked the diplomatic corps (not including USINT) to receive a copy of the document it has submitted to the UN Human Rights Council for its universal periodic review (UPR) of Cuba on February 5. Following the presentation at MINREX, the official communist youth daily Juventud Rebelde published a full page interview with Maria del Carmen Herrera Caseiro, deputy director of multi-lateral affairs at MINREX, discussing Cuba's plans for the UPR. As is the case with Cuba's submission to the HRC, most of the interview with Herrera focused on how the US violates human rights in Cuba through its embargo and "constant attacks" against the Cuban people. GOC observance of human rights is described in glowing terms throughout. Herrera blamed the US for the collapse of the UN Human Rights Commission and said HAVANA 00000053 002 OF 002 she hoped this process would right the wrongs that had been done to Cuba over the years in the former UNHRC. ¶6. (C) COMMENT: Even the comparatively limited amount of repression reported here over the past month calls into question many of the assertions made in Cuba's submission to the Human Rights Council. We hope that those UN members who take part in the review will grill the GOC on its report. We are not encouraged by reports from Madrid indicating the Spanish government believes the drop in the number of political prisoners is a sign of progress on human rights in Cuba. While the overall number has gone down since the announcement of the EU's new policy toward Cuba in June 2008, all the political prisoners that have been released have either completed their full sentence or been released into permanent exile. As evidenced by the reports listed above, the GOC may have changed some of its tactics, but its overall strategy to maintain absolute control remains in place. FARRAR