Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Cuba.htm
|
|||||||||||
|
CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Cuba. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Cuba U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/cuba/
[accessed 8 July
2021] DISAPPEARANCES There were
confirmed reports of long-term disappearances by or on behalf of government
authorities. There were multiple reports of detained activists whose
whereabouts were unknown for days or weeks because the government did not
register these detentions, many of which occurred at unregistered sites. TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT There were
recurring reports that members of the security forces and their agents
harassed, intimidated, and physically assaulted human rights and prodemocracy
advocates, political dissidents, and peaceful demonstrators, and that they
did so with impunity. Some detainees and prisoners endured physical abuse by
prison officials or other inmates at the instigation of guards. Although the
law prohibits coercion during investigative interrogations, police and
security forces at times used aggressive and physically abusive tactics,
threats, and harassment during questioning. Detainees reported officers
intimidated them with threats of long-term detention, loss of child-custody
rights, denial of permission to depart the country, and other punishments. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Prison and
detention cells reportedly lacked adequate water, sanitation, light,
ventilation, and temperature control. Although the government provided some
food and medical care, many prisoners relied on their families to provide
food and other basic supplies. Potable water was often unavailable. Prison
cells were overcrowded. Women reported lack of access to feminine hygiene
products and inadequate prenatal care. In June political
prisoner Walfrido Rodriguez Piloto
told independent outlet CubaNet he was denied
medical care in El Arco del Chico prison camp in Havana’s La Lisa
municipality, where he said prisoners were fed less than two ounces of food
per day. He said, “This is a concentration camp; I have been here for six
days with nephritic colic and without any medical attention. Between the
mosquitoes [which carry dengue], the bed bugs, and hunger, I’m going to die
here.” He also complained that he was mistreated by fellow prisoners who did
“the dirty work” of authorities in exchange for benefits. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/cuba/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 14 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE
USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? Opposition
activists, human rights defenders, and other perceived enemies of the regime
are routinely subjected to public assaults as well as abuse in custody. For
example, during the various raids on the homes of UNPACU dissidents during
the years, police commonly used excessive force in entering homes and
physically assaulted various activists while confiscating their belongings,
without providing any legal documentation for the seizures. The government has
repeatedly refused to allow international monitoring of its prisons. Prison conditions
are poor, featuring overcrowding, forced labor, inadequate sanitation and
medical care, and physical abuse. Fidel Castro
tortured Americans Fredericksburg.com,
12 April 2015 [accessed 5 May
2015] CUBA CASTRO REGIME
TORTURED AMERICAN SERVICEMEN The engineering
battalion maintained Route 9 of the Ho Chi Min trail. Their facilities
included a POW camp and field hospital near the DMZ.
Cuban interrogators also worked a
a Hanoi prison called “the Zoo.” At the Zoo, Alegret—referred to as “Fidel” by the POWs—brutally beat
our men. A zoo survivor described the treatment of a captured F–105 crew
member: “He was completely catatonic. His body was ripped and torn
everywhere. His cuffs appeared almost to sever his wrists. Slivers of bamboo
were imbedded in his bloody shins. He was bleeding everywhere. Fidel smashed
his fist into the man’s face driving him into the wall. In the center of the
room he was forced to his knees. Screaming in rage, Fidel then repeatedly
lashed his face as hard as he could with a rubber hose. He did not react, cry
out or even blink an eye, which enraged Alegret,
who continued beating him. He was not repatriated, but instead was listed as
having died in captivity, with his remains returned in 1974.” POWs held near Cong
Truong Five along with two other Cuban-run camps were “never acknowledged or
accounted for and they simply disappeared.” Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] CUBA PRISON CONDITIONS - Prisons are
overcrowded, and unhygienic and unhealthy conditions lead to extensive
malnutrition and illness. Prisoners are forced to work 12-hour days and
punished if they do not meet production quotas, according to former political
prisoners. Inmates have no effective complaint mechanism to seek redress, and
those who criticize the government, or engage in hunger strikes and other
forms of protest, are subjected to extended solitary confinement, beatings,
restrictions on family visits, and denial of medical care. While the
government allowed select members of the foreign press to conduct controlled
visits to a handful of prisons in April 2013, it continues to deny
international human rights groups and independent Cuban organizations access
to its prisons. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment -- Doc. CAT/C/CUB/CO/2
(2012) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/cuba2012.html [accessed 25
February 2013] 7. While noting the
information provided by the State party regarding work towards a possible
reform of the Criminal Code, the Committee regrets that torture, as defined
in article 1 of the Convention, is still not codified as a specific offence.
As regards the State party’s assertion that other similar criminal offences
are expressly defined in its domestic legislation, the Committee draws the
State party’s attention to its general comment No. 2 (2007), on the
implementation of article 2 by States parties, which emphasizes the
preventive value of codifying torture as a distinct offence (CAT/C/GC/2,
para. 11) (arts. 1 and 4). The Committee
reiterates the recommendation made in 1997 (A/53/44, para. 118 (a)) that the
State party should expressly criminalize torture in its domestic legislation
and should adopt a definition of torture covering all the aspects contained
in article 1 of the Convention. The State party must also ensure that such
offences are punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account
their grave nature, in accordance with article 4, paragraph 2, of the
Convention. Coerced confessions 22. While it takes
note of the constitutional safeguards and the provisions of the Criminal
Procedure Act establishing the inadmissibility of evidence obtained through
torture, the Committee expresses concern about reports of the use of coercive
methods during questioning, in particular sleep deprivation, solitary
confinement and exposure to sudden temperature changes. The Committee notes
the information provided by the State party which indicates that during the
period under review no cases were dismissed because the evidence or
testimonies submitted were obtained through torture or ill-treatment, although,
according to the delegation, neither was torture as a procedure invoked in
any case (arts. 2 and 15). The State party
must adopt effective measures that guarantee in practice the inadmissibility
of coerced confessions. The State party should ensure that law enforcement
officials, judges and lawyers receive training in how to detect and
investigate cases where confessions are obtained under duress. Human Rights in
Cuba Human Rights Watch [accessed 22 January
2013] Cuba remains the
only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political
dissent. The government enforces political conformity using harassment,
invasive surveillance, threats of imprisonment, and travel restrictions. In 2011, the Castro
government released the remaining political prisoners from the “group of
75”—human rights defenders, journalists, and other dissidents who were
sentenced in 2003 in summary trials for exercising their basic rights—forcing
most into exile. Since then, the government has increasingly relied on the
unlawful use of force, arbitrary arrests, and short-term detentions to
restrict its critics’ rights, including the freedom of assembly and
expression. AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 RIGHTS TO FREEDOM OF
EXPRESSION, ASSOCIATION, MOVEMENT AND ASSEMBLY - The authorities
adopted a range of measures to prevent activists reporting on human rights
including surrounding the homes of activists and disconnecting phones.
Organizations whose activities had been tolerated by the authorities in the
past, such as the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National
Reconciliation, were targeted. Independent journalists reporting on
dissidents’ activities were detained. Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, founder of the independent news
agency Let’s Talk Press (Hablemos Press), was
forced into a car in September, and reportedly beaten as he was driven to a
police station. Before being released, he was told that he had become the
“number one dissident journalist” and would be imprisoned if he continued his
activities. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For current
articles:: Search Amnesty
International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=cuba+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 25 December
2018] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61723.htm [accessed 22 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61723.htm [accessed 3 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits abusive treatment of detainees and prisoners; however, members of
the security forces sometimes beat and otherwise abused human rights
advocates, detainees, and prisoners, particularly political prisoners, and
did so with impunity. Authorities often
subjected detainees and prisoners to repeated, vigorous interrogations
designed to coerce them into signing incriminating statements or to force
their collaboration with authorities. Some endured physical and sexual abuse,
typically by other inmates with the acquiescence of guards, or long periods
in isolation or punishment cells. On February 19, a
"reeducation specialist" forced political prisoner Fidel Garcia
Roldan into a cell, pushed him against the wall, then
hit him repeatedly in the head. On March 2, Juan
Carlos Herrera Acosta, a prisoner at Kilo 8 prison in Camaguey, was
handcuffed and dragged more than 120 feet across the floor of the prison; he
suffered severe cuts and abrasions. As of that date, Herrera Acosta had not
been exposed to sunlight for more than one year. Throughout March
and April, authorities subjected political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia
to deafeningly loud music and noise from a speaker placed by the guards at
the entrance to his cell from the early morning until late each night; as of
April 28, he had been denied exposure to sunlight for seven months. In August a prison
guard beat dissident Arnaldo Ramos Lauzurique. On September 26, a guard at Camaguey's Kilo 8
prison punched and broke the nose of political prisoner Lamberto
Hernandez Plana, following his refusal to stand for a lineup of inmates. The
government knowingly sent mentally healthy prisoners to psychiatric hospitals
or the psychiatric ward of a prison hospital. For most of the year, Dr. Luis
Milan Fernandez, a political prisoner with no known mental ailment, was held
at the psychiatric ward of the Boniato prison in
Santiago. Dr. Milan was forced to share a cell with prisoners suffering from
severe mental illness. In February the government regained custody of academic
Orlando Vallin Diaz, who had escaped from a
psychiatric hospital months earlier. Vallin had
been sent to the hospital after serving approximately three months in prison
for alleged drug trafficking; family members denied that Vallin
had ever been involved with drugs or shown any sign of mental illness. The government
continued to subject persons who disagreed with it to "acts of
repudiation." At government instigation members of state-controlled mass
organizations, fellow workers, or neighbors of victims staged public protests
against those who dissented from the government's policies by shouting
obscenities and causing damage to the homes and property of those targeted.
Physical attacks on victims or their family members sometimes occurred.
Police and State Security agents often were present but took no action to
prevent or end the attacks. Those who refused to participate in these actions
faced disciplinary action, including loss of employment. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 7 Civil Liberties: 6 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/cuba [accessed 22 January
2013] LONG URL
ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 11 May
2020] Since 1991, the
United Nations has voted annually to assign a special investigator on human rights
to Cuba who was routinely denied a visa. In 2007, the UN Human Rights Council
ended the investigator position for Cuba. In February 2008, Raul Castro
authorized Cuban representatives to sign two UN human rights treaties,
despite strong objections from Fidel Castro. Cuba does not grant the
International Committee of the Red Cross or other humanitarian organizations
access to its prisons. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, " Torture by Police, Forced
Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st
Century- Cuba", http://gvnet.com/torture/Cuba.htm, [accessed
<date>] |
