Fox News Latino ran an article last week that clearly revealed its slant: “Cuba: If Egypt did it, Why Not Cuba? Some Ask, as Scores Take to the Streets.”
In the piece, Elizabeth Llorente interviews Cuban dissidents and Cuban-Americans who argue that Cuba is far more repressive than Egypt, but that an uprising on the island nation is ultimately inevitable.
(While I’m no expert on Cuba, the claim that it’s much worse than the countries in the Middle East seems really far-fetched. Can anyone who does know more about Cuba let me know in the comment section how Cuba’s political system compares to Egypt under Mubarak or other dictatorial regimes in the region?)
Not surprisingly, NPR took a different approach to the same question in this segment.
While Nick Miroff reports that Castro’s opponents do claim he is more controlling than dictators in the Middle East, he points out that:
Even Jonathan Farrar, the top U.S. official in Cuba, acknowledged in a leaked 2009 cable that Cuba’s dissidents are divided and have little following on the island.
Moreover, Miroff also notes that according to Amnesty International there are only five political prisoners in Cuba at the moment. As terrible as that is, to put it in context, the United States is still holding 172 prisoners in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay, almost all of whom have never been charged with any crime.
Correction, Amnesty International had identified five prisoners of conscience detained during the March 2003 Cuban Black Spring in which 75 non-violent dissidents were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms.
Human Rights Watch has documented scores of prisoners, many of them under the charge of “predilection to dangerousness” i.e. they’ve committed no crime but because of social class or who they associate with are viewed as a potential future danger.
Check out the website link provided.
The Castro brothers are clearly more controlling than the Mubarak regime and most likely (if not as repressive as Qaddafi in Libya) in the same ball park.
Thanks for this John. That clarification is helpful. You say that Castro is as repressive as Mubarak or Qaddafi. Could you explain why you think that? Like I said, I’m no expert on this and want to learn.
1. Human Rights Watch in 1999 http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/1999/06/01/cubas-repressive-machinery and again in 2009 http://www.hrw.org/en/node/86554 offered a meticulous analysis of the repressive machinery of the Cuban dictatorship which can be summed up as follows:
“The denial of basic civil and political rights is written into Cuban law. In the name of legality, armed security forces, aided by state-controlled mass organizations, silence dissent with heavy prison terms, threats of prosecution, harassment, or exile. Cuba uses these tools to restrict severely the exercise of fundamental human rights of expression, association, and assembly. The conditions in Cuba’s prisons are inhuman, and political prisoners suffer additional degrading treatment and torture.”
2. Cuban regime owns and controls all media outlets and restricts Internet access. In 2006 the Committee to Protect Journalists placed Libya at #5 and Cuba at #7 on its list of 10 most censored countries with North Korea being #1. (Egypt didn’t make it on to that list.)
http://cpj.org/reports/2006/05/10-most-censored-countries.php
3. Despite the lack of an independent media there are some stories that break through the official censorship that exposes the brutality of the regime. For example the July 13, 1994 “13 de Marzo” tugboat massacre in which 37 men, women, and children were killed by govt. agents for trying to leave the country. Both Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights reported on this:
Document – Cuba: The sinking of the “13 de Marzo” Tugboat on 13 July 1994 http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR25/013/1997/en/0f6d3a5e-ea51-11dd-965c-b55c1122d73f/amr250131997en.html
REPORT Nº 47/96 CASE 11.436 VICTIMS OF THE TUGBOAT “13 DE MARZO” vs. CUBA October 16, 1996 http://www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/96eng/Cuba11436.htm
There is much more in terms of concrete evidence and would be happy to provide if you deem it necessary, but have tried to be brief and use respected international sources.
FYI, the latest news, from an Amnesty Intl press release today:
In response to news that the Cuban authorities will release the last remaining activists from the group of 75 detained in March 2003, Amnesty International’s expert on Cuba, Gerardo Ducos, said:
“It is a step in the right direction for human rights in Cuba to see the release of all prisoners of conscience from the March 2003 crackdown and an activist detained last December, particularly considering they should have never been imprisoned in the first place.”
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGPRE011512011&lang=e