Corbacho Daudinot v. Puig Valdes et al

Filing 1

COMPLAINT UNDER THE TORTURE VICTIM PROTECTION ACT against All Defendants. Filing fees $ 400.00 receipt number 113C-5898756, filed by MIGUEL ANGEL CORBACHO DAUDINOT. (Attachments: #1 Civil Cover Sheet, #2 Summon(s), #3 Exhibit A, #4 Exhibit B, #5 Exhibit C, #6 Exhibit D, #7 Exhibit E, #8 Exhibit F, #9 Exhibit G, #10 Exhibit H, #11 Exhibit I, #12 Exhibit J, #13 Exhibit K, #14 Exhibit L, #15 Exhibit M, #16 Exhibit N, #17 Exhibit O, #18 Exhibit P, #19 Exhibit Q, #20 Exhibit R, #21 Exhibit S, #22 Exhibit T, #23 Exhibit U)(Gonzalez, Avelino)

Exhibit R

Cuba

H U M A N

New Castro, Same Cuba

R I G H T S

Political Prisoners in the Post-Fidel Era

W A T C H

New Castro, Same Cuba
Political Prisoners in the Post-Fidel Era

Copyright © 2009 Human Rights Watch
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 1-56432-562-8
Cover design by Rafael Jimenez
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November 2009

1-56432-562-8

New Castro, Same Cuba
Political Prisoners in the Post-Fidel Era
I. Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... 1
Recommendations ....................................................................................................................... 7
II. Illustrative Cases ......................................................................................................................... 11
Ramón Velásquez Toranzo ......................................................................................................... 11
Alexander Santos Hernández ..................................................................................................... 12
“Jorge Barrera Alonso” ............................................................................................................... 14
Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín ........................................................................................................ 16
III. Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 19
Lack of Cooperation by the Cuban Government .......................................................................... 19
Sources and Research ............................................................................................................... 19
Who Is a “Dissident”? ............................................................................................................... 20
Anonymity and Security ............................................................................................................. 21
IV. The Legal Foundation of Repression in Cuba .............................................................................. 22
Criminalizing Dissent .................................................................................................................22
Contempt ............................................................................................................................ 23
Insubordination .................................................................................................................. 25
Collaboration with the United States .................................................................................. 26
Association ......................................................................................................................... 27
“Dangerousness” ............................................................................................................... 28
Restricting Rights ....................................................................................................................... 32
Denying Judicial Protection ........................................................................................................ 34
Denying External Protections .....................................................................................................38
V. Political Prisoners ........................................................................................................................40
Repression under Fidel Castro................................................................................................... 40
2003 Crackdown ................................................................................................................. 41
Repression under Raúl Castro ................................................................................................... 48
Applying the “Dangerousness” Provision............................................................................ 48
Other Forms of Criminalizing Dissent ................................................................................... 54
VI. Due Process Violations ...............................................................................................................56
Failure to Provide Information to Detainees and Families ............................................................ 56
Restrictions of Family Visits ....................................................................................................... 57
Lack of Access to Legal Counsel ................................................................................................. 58

Forced Interrogations ................................................................................................................ 60
Abusive Pre-Trial Detention Conditions ...................................................................................... 61
Indefinite Detention .................................................................................................................. 62
Summary Trials ......................................................................................................................... 64
Closed Trials .............................................................................................................................. 65
Arbitrary Actions by Prosecutors and Judges............................................................................... 67
Parole and the Threat of Retraction ........................................................................................... 68
VII. Inhumane Prisons ...................................................................................................................... 71
Restricted Visits and Correspondence ........................................................................................ 72
Arbitrary Prison Transfers ........................................................................................................... 73
Exposure to Tuberculosis .................................................................................................... 74
Unhygienic Conditions ............................................................................................................... 76
Health Problems and Inadequate Medical Treatment.................................................................. 77
Harassment and Beatings .......................................................................................................... 81
Solitary Confinement ................................................................................................................ 82
Lack of Adequate Monitoring and Complaint Mechanisms......................................................... 84
VIII. Everyday Forms of Repression...................................................................................................87
Short-term Detention ................................................................................................................. 87
Beatings and Excessive Use of Force ......................................................................................... 89
Public Acts of Repudiation.................................................................................................. 92
Threats and Warnings ................................................................................................................93
Invasive Surveillance ................................................................................................................. 95
Denial of Employment and Financial Hardship............................................................................ 97
Fines ........................................................................................................................................ 98
Reprisals against Families ........................................................................................................ 99
Travel Restrictions ................................................................................................................... 100
IX. State of Fear.............................................................................................................................. 102
Self-Censorship and Coerced Allegiance .................................................................................. 102
Surveillance and Suspicion ...................................................................................................... 105
Distrust of the Courts ............................................................................................................... 106
Emotional and Psychological Impact ........................................................................................ 108
A Strategy of Isolation .............................................................................................................. 110
Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................ 112
Appendix 1: List of the 53 Political Prisoners Arrested in the 2003 Crackdown Who Remain in Prison
under Raúl Castro .......................................................................................................................... 113
Appendix 2: Human Rights Watch Letters to the Cuban Government Requesting Meetings and
Permission to Visit Cuba .................................................................................................................115
Appendix 3: The “Dangerousness” Law, Excerpt from the Cuban Criminal Code ............................. 120

I. Executive Summary
In July 2006, Fidel Castro handed control of the Cuban government over to his brother Raúl
Castro. As the new head of state, Raúl Castro inherited a system of abusive laws and
institutions, as well as responsibility for hundreds of political prisoners arrested during his
brother’s rule. Rather than dismantle this repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it
firmly in place and fully active. Scores of political prisoners arrested under Fidel Castro
continue to languish in Cuba’s prisons. And Raúl Castro’s government has used draconian
laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their
fundamental freedoms.
Raúl Castro’s government has relied in particular on a provision of the Cuban Criminal Code
that allows the state to imprison individuals before they have committed a crime, on the
suspicion that they might commit an offense in the future. This “dangerousness” provision
is overtly political, defining as “dangerous” any behavior that contradicts socialist norms.
The most Orwellian of Cuba’s laws, it captures the essence of the Cuban government’s
repressive mindset, which views anyone who acts out of step with the government as a
potential threat and thus worthy of punishment.
Despite significant obstacles to research, Human Rights Watch documented more than 40
cases in which Cuba has imprisoned individuals for “dangerousness” under Raúl Castro
because they tried to exercise their fundamental rights. We believe there are many more. The
“dangerous” activities in these cases have included handing out copies of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, staging peaceful marches, writing news articles critical of the
government, and attempting to organize independent unions.
The Raúl Castro government has applied the “dangerousness” law not only to dissenters
and critics of the government, but to a broad range of people who choose not to cooperate
with the state. We found that failing to attend pro-government rallies, not belonging to
official party organizations, and being unemployed are all considered signs of “antisocial”
behavior, and may lead to “official warnings” and even incarceration in Raúl Castro’s Cuba.
In a January 2009 campaign called “Operation Victory,” dozens of individuals in eastern
Cuba—most of them youth—were charged with “dangerousness” for being unemployed. So
was a man from Sancti Spíritus who could not work because of health problems, and was
sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in August 2008 for being unemployed.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

In addition to “dangerousness,” Cuba has a wide range of other laws that criminalize the
exercise of fundamental freedoms, including laws penalizing contempt, insubordination,
and acts against the independence of the state. Indeed, article 62 of the Cuban constitution
prohibits the exercise of any basic right that runs contrary to “the ends of the socialist
state.” Together with a judicial system that lacks independence and systematically violates
due process rights, Raúl Castro’s government has employed such laws to imprison scores of
peaceful dissidents.
Imprisonment is only one of the many tactics the Cuban government uses to repress
fundamental freedoms. Dissidents who try to express their views are often beaten, arbitrarily
arrested, and subjected to public acts of repudiation. The government monitors, intimidates,
and threatens those it perceives as its enemies. It isolates them from their friends and
neighbors and discriminates against their families.
Cuba attempts to justify this repression as a legitimate response to a US policy aimed at
toppling the Castro government. It is true that the United States has a long history of
intervention on the island, and its current policy explicitly aims to support a change in
Cuba’s government. However, in the scores of cases Human Rights Watch examined for this
report, this argument falls flat.
The reason that human rights advocate Ramón Velásquez Toranzo set out on a peaceful
march across Cuba and journalist Raymundo Perdigón Brito wrote articles critical of the
Castro government was not because they were agents of the US government, but rather
because they saw problems with their own. Yet because these dissidents expressed their
opinions openly, both were imprisoned by Raúl Castro’s government, like scores of others.
Rather than being a legitimate defense against a threat to national security, these and other
cases reveal a state that uses repression to enforce conformity with its political agenda.
It is important to note that the term “dissidents” in the Cuban context does not refer to a
homogenous group of people who share a single ideology, affiliation, or common objective.
Rather, it refers to anyone who—like Velásquez and Perdigón—engages in activities the
government deems contrary to its political agenda. Some dissidents may advocate for
democratic change or reform of the socialist system from within; while others may be
apolitical, focusing instead on a single issue such as the right to practice their religion or
organize a trade union.
Dissidents are a small and significantly isolated segment of the population. However, their
marginalization is evidence not of the lack of dissent in Cuba, but rather of the state’s

New Castro, Same Cuba

2

ruthless efficiency in suppressing it. Fear permeates all aspects of dissidents’ lives. Some
stop voicing their opinions and abandon their activities altogether; others continue to
exercise their rights, but live in constant dread of being punished. Many more never express
dissent to avoid reprisals. As human rights defender Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba told Human
Rights Watch in March 2009, “We live 24 hours a day ready to be detained.” Ten days after
making that statement, Bartelemí was arrested and taken to prison without trial, where he
remains today.
While this report documents a systematic pattern of repression, it does not intend to suggest
that there are no outlets for dissent whatsoever in Cuba. The last three years have, for
example, witnessed the emergence of an independent Cuban blogosphere, critical lyrics by
musicians, and most recently a series of government-organized public meetings to reflect on
Cuban socialism.
Upon closer examination, however, these examples show just how circumscribed spaces of
dissent are and, as a result, how incredibly limited their impact is on society on the whole.
While some bloggers speak to problems in Cuba, they must publish their work through back
channels—saving documents on memory sticks and uploading entries through illegal
connections. Because an hour of internet use costs one-third of Cubans’ monthly wages and
is available exclusively in a few government-run centers, only a tiny fraction of Cubans have
the chance to read such blogs—including, ironically, bloggers themselves. Some bands
perform lyrics that criticize the government, but their songs are banned from the airwaves,
their performances shut down, and their members harassed and arbitrarily detained. And
while it is true that Raúl Castro’s government organized meetings recently to reflect on
Cuban socialism, the agenda for these discussions explicitly prohibited any talk of reforming
the single-party system.
Cuba has made important advances in the progressive realization of some economic, social,
and cultural rights such as education and healthcare. For example, UNESCO has concluded
that there is near-universal literacy on the island and UNICEF has projected that the country
is on track to achieve most of the Millennium Development Goals. However, the stark reality
is that this progress has not been matched in respect for civil and political rights.
The Raúl Castro government has at times signaled a willingness to reconsider its longstanding disregard for human rights norms. In February 2008, Cuba signed the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and commuted the death sentences of all prisoners
except for three individuals charged with terrorism. Yet the Castro government has yet to

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

ratify the ICCPR and ICESCR, and continues to flout many of the treaties’ core principles. And
Cuban law still allows individuals who undermine the independence of the state to be
sentenced to death.
The Cuban government has for years refused to recognize the legitimacy of independent
human rights monitoring and has adamantly refused to allow international monitors, such as
the International Committee of the Red Cross and international nongovernmental
organizations like Human Rights Watch, to visit the island and investigate human rights
conditions. In researching this report, Human Rights Watch made repeated written requests
to the Raúl Castro government for meetings with authorities and formal authorization to
conduct a fact-finding mission to the island. As in the past, the Cuban government did not
respond to any of our requests.
As a result, Human Rights Watch decided to conduct a fact-finding mission to Cuba without
official permission in June and July 2009. During this trip, Human Rights Watch researchers
conducted extensive interviews in seven of the island’s fourteen provinces. We also
conducted numerous interviews via telephone from New York City. In total, we carried out
more than 60 in-depth interviews with human rights defenders, journalists, former political
prisoners, family members of current political prisoners, members of the clergy, trade
unionists, and other Cuban citizens.
Those interviews, together with extensive research from January to November 2009, are the
basis of the following findings:

The Legal Foundation of Repression in Cuba
Cuba’s laws empower the state to criminalize virtually all forms of dissent. Article 62 of the
Cuban constitution explicitly prohibits Cubans from exercising their basic rights against the
“ends of the socialist state.” Cubans who dare to criticize the government are subject to
draconian criminal and “pre-criminal” charges, such as “dangerousness.” They are
exempted from due process guarantees. They are denied meaningful judicial protection. And
they are left without recourse to international human rights mechanisms.
A person is considered to be in a state of dangerousness due to antisocial
behavior if the person... lives, like a social parasite, off the work of others.
—Article 73 of the Criminal Code, on one kind of “antisocial behavior” that constitutes
“dangerousness.”

New Castro, Same Cuba

4

Political Prisoners
Raúl Castro’s government has imprisoned scores of political prisoners using laws
criminalizing dissent. In particular, Cuba has relied on a “dangerousness” provision that
allows authorities to imprison individuals for exercising their fundamental freedoms, on the
grounds that their activities contradict “socialist morality.” The provision has more broadly
been applied to non-dissident Cubans who choose not to work for the government, and are
thus viewed as a threat. Meanwhile, Raúl Castro continues to imprison scores of dissidents
unjustly sentenced for exercising their fundamental freedoms under Fidel Castro, including
53 human rights defenders, journalists, civil society leaders, and other dissenters arrested in
a massive 2003 crackdown.
The authorities were always threatening me, saying that if I did not distance
myself from ‘the opposition’—if I did not change my behavior—I was going to
be arrested. I told them, “You have to prove I committed a crime, but I
haven’t done anything.”
—William Reyes Mir, who belonged to an unofficial political group in Banes. Reyes was
arrested in September 2007 and sentenced to two years of forced labor for “dangerousness.”

Due Process Violations
Cuba systematically violates the due process rights of dissenters from the moment they are
arrested through their sham trials. Political detainees are routinely denied access to legal
counsel and family visits, held in inhumane and dangerous conditions, and subjected to
forced interrogations. Neither detainees nor their families are adequately informed about the
charges against them, and political detainees may be held for months or years without ever
being formally tried for a crime. Nearly all trials of political detainees are closed hearings
lasting less than one hour, during which dissidents are subjected to politically motivated
rulings and even falsification of evidence by security officials and prosecutors. Human
Rights Watch was unable to document a single case under the Raúl Castro government
where a court acquitted a political detainee.
[The police] picked me up at 5:50 am while I was at home sleeping, and by
8:30 that morning they were already reading me my sentence... They
detained me on July 5 but the ruling they gave me had been written on July 3.
They didn’t allow me to have a lawyer, and the hearing was conducted
behind closed doors, without my family. The trial lasted 15 or 20 minutes.
—Alexander Santos Hernández, a political activist from Gibara, on his July 2006 arrest and
summary trial. Santos was sentenced to four years for “dangerousness.”

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Inhumane Prisons
Cuba’s prison officials, like the Cuban government as a whole, punish dissent. Conditions
for political prisoners and common prisoners alike are overcrowded, unhygienic, and
unhealthy, leading to extensive malnutrition and illness. Political prisoners who criticize the
government, refuse to participate in ideological “re-education,” or engage in hunger strikes
or other forms of protest are routinely subjected to extended solitary confinement, beatings,
restrictions of visits, and the denial of medical care. Prisoners have no effective complaint
mechanism to seek redress, granting prison authorities total impunity. Taken together, these
forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment may rise to the level of torture.
The cells are one meter or one-and-a-half meters wide by two meters long.
You sleep during the day on a concrete platform and at night you get a
mattress, which is removed at daybreak. You are not allowed to have any
belongings, and the food is terrible... Some cells have a little window, others
none. Some cells have light, others don’t.
—Víctor Yunier Fernández Martínez describes the conditions in solitary confinement, where he
was sent repeatedly during his imprisonment for “dangerousness” from 2006 to 2009.
Fernández, a political activist, was incarcerated in the prisons of Canaleta and 1580.

Everyday Forms of Repression
Dissenters are punished daily in nearly every aspect of their lives. The Cuban government
routinely uses short-term arrests to harass dissidents or prevent them from participating in
groups or activities considered “counterrevolutionary.” Dissidents are beaten, publicly
humiliated, and threatened by security officers and groups of civilians tied to the state. They
are denied work, fired from jobs, and fined, placing significant financial strain on their
families. They are prevented from exercising their right to travel within and outside of the
island. And they are subjected to invasive surveillance, which violates their privacy and
gathers information that can later be used to imprison them. These tactics of repression are
consistently visited on the families of dissenters as well.
The rapid response brigade was waiting for us, carrying wooden bats and
metal rods, as though they were ready to beat us. They insulted us, saying we
were worms, the scum of society. They called my mother and me whores and
sluts.
—Rufina Velásquez González describing one of the groups that harassed her and her parents
when they set out on a peaceful march across Cuba in December 2006 calling for the release
of all political prisoners.

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6

State of Fear
Cuba’s systematic repression has created a pervasive climate of fear among dissidents and,
when it comes to expression of political views, in Cuban society as a whole. This climate
hinders the exercise of basic rights, pressuring Cubans to show their allegiance to the state,
while discouraging any form of criticism. Dissidents feel as though they are constantly being
watched—a sense that fosters distrust among peers and self-censorship. They fear they will
be arrested at any moment, and have no confidence in the willingness of the government to
protect their rights or give them a fair trial. This climate of fear has led to the near-complete
isolation of dissidents from their communities, friends, and sometimes even families, which
together with other forms of repression has had profound emotional consequences,
including depression and signs of trauma.
No one is allowed to talk to me. People who come to my house are
immediately called by state security and reprimanded. Then these people—
for fear of losing their jobs, for fear that [the authorities] will take it out on
someone in their family—simply stop talking to me.
—Former political prisoner Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, who was imprisoned for “dangerousness”
in January 2008, describes his treatment by neighbors in Matanzas since his release.

Recommendations
Given the effectiveness of Cuba’s repressive machinery and the Castro government’s firm
grip on power, the pressure needed to bring progress on human rights cannot come solely
from within Cuba. In order to succeed, it must be supported by effective pressure on the part
of the international community. Currently, this effective pressure—whether from Latin
American countries, the United States, Canada, or Europe—is lacking.
Efforts by the US government to press for change by imposing a sweeping economic
embargo have proven to be a costly and misguided failure. The embargo imposes
indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban population as a whole, and has done nothing to
improve the situation of human rights in Cuba. Rather than isolating Cuba, the policy has
isolated the United States, enabling the Castro government to garner sympathy abroad while
simultaneously alienating Washington’s potential allies.
There is no question: the Cuban government bears full and exclusive responsibility for the
abuses it commits. However, so long as the embargo remains in place, the Castro
government will continue to manipulate US policy to cast itself as a Latin American David
standing up to the US Goliath, a role it exploits skillfully.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Just as the US embargo policy has proved counterproductive, so have the policies of the
European Union and Canada failed to exert effective pressure on Cuba. The EU’s Common
Position sets clear human rights benchmarks for economic cooperation with Cuba, but the
cost of noncompliance has been insufficient to compel change by the Castro government.
Canada lacks such benchmarks, promoting significant investment in the island at the same
time as it decries the Cuban government’s abuses.
Worse still, Latin American governments across the political spectrum have been reluctant to
criticize Cuba, and in some cases have openly embraced the Castro government, despite its
dismal human rights record. Countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador hold Cuba up as
a model, while others quietly admit its abuses even as they enthusiastically push for Cuba’s
reintegration into regional bodies such as the Organization of American States (OAS). The
silence of the Latin governments condones Cuba’s abusive behavior, and perpetuates a
climate of impunity that allows repression to continue. This is particularly troubling coming
from a region in which many countries have learned firsthand the high cost of international
indifference to state-sponsored repression.
Not only have all of these policies—US, European, Canadian, and Latin American—failed
individually to improve human rights in Cuba, but their divided and even contradictory
nature has allowed the Cuban government to evade effective pressure and deflect criticism
of its practices.
To remedy this continuing failure, the US must end its failed embargo policy. It should shift
the goal of its Cuba strategy away from regime change and toward promoting human rights.
In particular, it should replace its sweeping bans on travel and trade with Cuba with more
effective forms of pressure.
This move would fundamentally shift the balance in the Cuban government’s relationship
with its own people and the international community. No longer would Cuba be able to
manipulate the embargo as a pretext for repressing its own people. Nor would other
countries be able to blame the US policy for their own failures to hold Cuba accountable for
its abuses.
However, ending the current embargo policy by itself will not bring an end to Cuba’s
repression. Only a multilateral approach will have the political power and moral authority to
press the Cuban government to end its repressive practices. Therefore, before changing its
policy, the US should work to secure commitments from the EU, Canada, and Latin American

New Castro, Same Cuba

8

allies that they will join together to pressure Cuba to meet a single, concrete demand: the
immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners.
In order to enforce this demand, the multilateral coalition should establish a clear definition
of who constitutes a political prisoner—one that includes all Cubans imprisoned for
exercising their fundamental rights, including those incarcerated for the pre-criminal offense
of “dangerousness” and the 53 dissidents still in prison from the 2003 crackdown. It should
also set a firm deadline for compliance, granting the Raúl Castro government six months to
meet this demand.
Most important, the members of the coalition should commit themselves to holding the
Cuban government accountable should it fail to release its political prisoners. The penalties
should be significant enough that they bear real consequences for the Cuban government.
And they should be focused enough to target the Cuban leadership, rather than the Cuban
population on the whole. Options include adopting targeted sanctions on the government
officials, such as travel bans and asset freezes; and withholding any new forms of foreign
investment until Cuba meets the demand.
During the six-month period, Latin American countries, Canada, the EU, and the US should
be able to choose individually whether or not to impose their own restrictions on Cuba.
Some may enact targeted sanctions on Cuba’s leadership immediately, while others may put
no restrictions on Cuba during that time.
Regardless, if the Castro government is still holding political prisoners at the end of six
months, Cuba must be held accountable. All of the countries must honor their agreement
and impose joint punitive measures on Cuba that will effectively pressure the Castro
government to release its political prisoners.
On the other hand, if the Cuban government releases all political prisoners—whether before
or after the six month period is complete—these punitive measures should be lifted. Then,
the multilateral coalition should devise a sustained, incremental strategy to push the Raúl
Castro government to improve its human rights record. This strategy should focus on
pressuring Cuba to reform its laws criminalizing dissent, dismantle the repressive
institutions that enforce them, and end abuses of basic rights. And the impact of the
strategy should be monitored regularly to ensure it is not creating more repression than it
curbs.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Ultimately, it is the Raúl Castro government that bears responsibility for such abuses—and
has the power to address them. Yet as the last three years of Raúl Castro’s rule show, Cuba
will not improve its human rights record unless it is pressured to do so.

New Castro, Same Cuba

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II. Illustrative Cases
Ramón Velásquez Toranzo1
Ramón Velásquez Toranzo set out on his march on December 10, 2006—International
Human Rights Day. With him were his wife, Bárbara, and their 18-year-old daughter, Rufina.
Each of them carried a sign. The signs read: “respect for human rights,” “freedom for
political prisoners,” and “no more repression against the peaceful opposition.” Their goal
was to walk the entire length of the island of Cuba, from east to west.
They marched silently. At night, they slept on the sides of roads, in bus stops, or in the
homes of people who took them in. After a few days, security officers began trailing them.
On the outskirts of Holguín, a group affiliated with the government known as a “rapid
response brigade” surrounded them with bats and metal rods. They called Velásquez and
his family “mercenaries” and “whores,” and threatened to rape Bárbara and Rufina. Police
looked on and did nothing.
Security officials arrested the family as they walked through Holguín. Velásquez was thrown
in jail, while his wife and daughter were forcibly returned to their home in Las Tunas. When
Velásquez was released four days later, they continued to march west. Twice, cars tried to
run them over, and they had to dive off the road to avoid being hit. More brigades taunted
them. Security officers threatened them. Still, they kept marching.
They reached Camagüey on January 19, 2007, and were arrested again. Velásquez was held
for four days and then taken to a municipal court. That he had not committed a crime did not
matter; under Cuba’s “dangerousness” law, individuals can be imprisoned simply when
courts determine they are likely to commit a crime in the future.
The state’s only evidence against him was a series of “official warnings” (advertencias
oficiales) for being unemployed—issued while he was on his march—which he had never
seen before. His lawyer, whom he met five minutes before the trial, defended him vigorously
at the outset of the hearing. Then, the judge called a recess and invited the defense lawyer
to his quarters. When the lawyer returned, she stopped defending Velásquez and did not
speak for the rest of the trial.
1

This account is based on Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Ramon Velásquez Toranzo’s wife, Bárbara González
Cruz, in Cuba, on March 3 and April 23, 2009; and Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Ramon Velásquez Toranzo’s
daughter, Rufina Velásquez González, in Miami, on April 28 and May 14, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

The trial lasted less than an hour, and the judge sentenced Velásquez to three years in jail.
He was bused to a prison, stripped down to his underwear, and thrown into a solitary
confinement cell. The tiny space had no bed—only a concrete floor that flooded with water
every time it rained. When his family brought him food to supplement the meager prison
rations, guards repeatedly left it outside his cell to rot.
His wife, Bárbara, fell into a deep depression following his incarceration, not leaving her bed
for weeks, while his son, René, was fired from his job without warning. His daughter Rufina,
who continued to monitor human rights and report on abuses, was subjected to constant
surveillance. Authorities warned her that she would suffer the same fate as her father if she
did not change her behavior. She eventually fled to the United States, where she lives today.
As of November 2009, Velásquez was still serving out his sentence.

Alexander Santos Hernández2
Alexander Santos Hernández was first put on trial for his political activities in November
2004. He was working on the Varela Project, a peaceful campaign to gather signatures from
Cuban citizens calling for democratic change, and had hosted open meetings in his home in
Gibara, Holguín, to discuss the project. One day, as he was leaving a gathering, a police
officer told him to come by the station for questioning. When he failed to report to the
station, he was sentenced to six months of forced labor for “disobedience to authority.” He
was 29 years old.
When Santos completed his sentence, he resumed his participation in nonviolent political
activities. He joined two small political groups not recognized by the government (and thus
illegal)—the Cuban Liberal Movement and the Eastern Democratic Alliance. Both were
dedicated to promoting political change and respect for basic rights in Cuba. He attended
meetings, voiced criticism of the government, and documented abuses by government
officials.
As a result, Santos was subject to myriad forms of repression. In 2005, his boss fired him
from his job as a martial arts instructor. When Santos went to the state employment center,
an official there told him that “worms do not deserve employment.” Santos was the target of
six public acts of repudiation from 2005 to 2006. Groups of pro-government civilians

2

This account is based on a Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernandez, Cuba, March 16,
2009.

New Castro, Same Cuba

12

gathered outside his home and insulted him, calling him a “mercenary” and a “traitor.” More
than once, they broke down his door and ransacked a collection of books on democracy and
other “subversive” topics that he maintained as a free library.
In June 2006, Santos was attacked in the street by a “rapid response brigade,” a group
designed to protect the government against threats from “counterrevolutionaries.” Without
provocation, eight men from the brigade beat Santos severely, he later told Human Rights
Watch. The group was led by a major in the police force, whom Santos knew from having
been detained several times. The major told Santos that the next time he saw him riding his
motorcycle, he was going to run him over.
On July 5, 2006, police arrested Santos in his home. According to Santos, “[The police]
picked me up at 5:50AM while I was at home sleeping, and by 8:30 that morning they were
already reading me my sentence.” He was taken to the Municipal Court of Gibara, where he
was charged with “dangerousness.”
Santos was not appointed a lawyer, and his family was not notified of the hearing. The trial,
which lasted between 15 and 20 minutes, was completely closed to the public. According to
Santos, the prosecutor’s only argument was that he was a “dissident,” which constituted a
danger to society. The judge sentenced him to four years in prison for “dangerousness.”
Santos said the sentence itself, which he was allowed to read, was dated July 3, 2006—two
days before his trial. Santos’s family was notified about the decision after it had been issued.
His mother hired a lawyer to appeal his case, but the Provincial Court of Holguín upheld
Santos’s sentence.
Santos was sent to Cuba Sí! prison in Holguín, where he said was put in a cell with dozens of
prisoners convicted of violent crimes. His cellmates were serving between 20 and 60 years,
while Santos was serving four. The food he was given was inadequate and rotten, and he
quickly developed health problems, including serious stomach ailments and painful
pustules on his face. Despite his repeated requests, authorities would not allow him to see a
doctor. As a result, he went on hunger strike to demand medical attention. He did not eat for
23 days, until he was finally granted a doctor’s visit.
Santos witnessed beatings of fellow political prisoners in prison. The most severe was in
February 2007, when journalist Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona—one of 75 individuals
arrested in a massive crackdown in 2003—tried to carry some of his leftover lunch out of the
dining hall. Arroyo, who was 55 at the time, was suffering digestive problems and had been
given permission by authorities to finish eating his food in his cell. Santos watched a prison

13

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

guard stop Arroyo and ask him where he was going with the food. When Arroyo answered
and kept walking, the guard punched him in the back of the head, knocking him to the
ground, and beat him while he was on the floor. Santos said the officer punched Arroyo
several times in the face and the body, shattering his glasses.
In 2008, renowned Cuban singer Silvio Rodríguez gave a series of concerts in Cuba’s prisons.
In the days before he came to Cuba Sí! prison, Santos said, officials rounded up all of the
political prisoners and gay prisoners and moved them to another facility.
Santos was released on parole in December 2008. He said a plainclothes police officer was
permanently stationed outside of his house, and anyone who visited him was threatened.
Authorities told one of Santos’s oldest friends that if she continued to visit him, they would
expel her daughter from school. She has since stopped coming to see him.
Santos was given a short contract as a bricklayer when he was released, but he told Human
Rights Watch that he since had difficulty finding a job because of his reputation as a
dissident. He worried the authorities would revoke his parole for being unemployed, which
is considered a form of “antisocial behavior” under the “dangerousness” provision.

“Jorge Barrera Alonso”3
Jorge Barrera Alonso had been working in a comedor obrero, or state-run workplace cafeteria,
when one day his boss fired him with no advance warning, saying he was “not suited” for
the job. Shortly before his dismissal, Barrera had started attending the meetings of an
unauthorized political group that is critical of the Cuban government. He spent weeks
looking for a new job, but was repeatedly turned away. Unable to find work, he took a job
working for a vegetable seller who lacked official government authorization, and thus was
considered illegal.
Barrera continued to attend meetings of the unofficial group and began participating in
public activities raising awareness about political rights. In 2006, he and a friend were
distributing copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the street. Police arrived,
arresting Barrera. His friend managed to escape and called Barrera’s wife, “Hilda Galán,”4 to
tell her about his arrest. Galán went to every police station in the city looking for her
3

This account is based on Human Rights Watch telephone interview with “Hilda Galán” on February 24, 2009, regarding the
case of her husband, political prisoner “Jorge Barrera Alonso.” Galán asked that her name and her husband’s be changed to
avoid reprisals while her husband is still in prison.

4

Ibid.

New Castro, Same Cuba

14

husband, but all of the officials she spoke to alleged they had not heard of him. Galán then
went to file a report with a municipal complaints office that her husband had disappeared
after being arrested by the police. She later received a call from one of the stations she had
visited, saying that Barrera was in their custody.
Barrera spent five days in police detention, during which he was allowed one 30-minute visit
with his wife and their two-year-old daughter. An officer stood by throughout their visit and
explicitly warned Barrera and his wife not to discuss anything related to his arrest or
detention, threatening to cut short their meeting if they did.
In the time leading up to his trial, Barrera was denied access to a lawyer and held in a small
cell with prisoners who had been sentenced for violent crimes. The police informed Barrera
of his trial only three hours before it was to take place. He was allowed to call his wife, who
barely made it to court in time for his hearing. Before the trial began, Barrera asked if he
could appoint his own lawyer, but authorities responded that they could not delay the trial
and the state-appointed lawyers would serve the same function.
The trial, in which the state prosecutor accused Barrera of “dangerousness,” lasted less than
an hour. His wife described the process as follows:
The trial was crazy. First of all, they didn’t let him speak. The prosecutor
spoke of things that I had never heard of—that [my husband] would
associate with dangerous people, delinquents; that they were going to
punish him in order to prevent him from doing something against other
people’s property; that he did not work; that he did not study; that he was
not a part of the revolutionary process. And he is not like that.5
The state offered no proof and presented no witnesses to support its accusations, and
Barrera’s state-assigned lawyer made no counter-arguments to refute the charges. The judge
denied Barrera the right to speak in his own defense, despite his expressed wish to do so.
Barrera was sentenced to four years in prison.
Over the subsequent two-and-a-half years, Barrera was moved to three different prisons, all
of which were located a considerable distance from his home, making it difficult for his wife
to visit him. In each prison, he was subjected to solitary confinement and other punishments
for refusing to wear a prisoner’s uniform or partake in mandatory “re-education.”
5

Ibid.

15

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

To mark Human Rights Day on December 10, 2008, Barrera began to read aloud to his
cellmates from a book his wife had brought him called Your Rights (Tus Derechos), which
includes the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to his wife, whom
Barrera later told about the incident:
An official arrived, roughed him up, and told him that he had to eat the book.
[Barrera] said that he wasn’t going to eat the book, that he wasn’t some
animal that eats books, and that there was nothing wrong with the book.6
Authorities confiscated the book and threw Barrera in solitary confinement.
Following days of solitary confinement, Barrera later told his wife, he was taken to a
municipal court where he was tried for contempt for authority (desacato). He was denied the
right to choose his own lawyer, the proceedings were closed to the public and conducted in
summary fashion, and no evidence was presented against him except the accusations of the
prison officials. His wife was not even informed that the trial was taking place. Barrera told
his wife he had been sentenced to six additional years, bringing his combined sentence to
ten years. He never received a copy of his sentence, nor any record that the hearing had
taken place.
After Barrera was sentenced, his wife gave an interview to the foreign press denouncing his
mistreatment and closed-door trial. In the aftermath, she said, prison officials cut off her
visitation rights and phone calls with her husband.

Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín7
Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín, a 35-year-old dissident from Banes, Holguín, received several
official warnings for “dangerousness” in 2006. The warnings accused him of “antisocial
behavior,” he said, and advised him to abandon his “counterrevolutionary” activities.
Rodríguez said his “antisocial behavior” was rooted in his participation in a pair of unofficial
civil society groups, which documented human rights abuses and promoted political change.
He attended gatherings and spoke openly about democratic change in Cuba.

6

Ibid.

7

This account is based on Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín on March 16 and 19,
2009.

New Castro, Same Cuba

16

On July 6, 2006, four policemen came to Rodríguez’s house and arrested him. He was taken
to a police station, where he was held incommunicado for four days. He had no access to a
lawyer and was not allowed to receive any family visits. Rodríguez was brought before a
judge in a provincial court on July 10 and charged with “dangerousness.” He said the
prosecutor accused him of being “disaffected with the government,” “opposed to the
revolutionary system,” and therefore “not suited to live in society.” He was sentenced to four
years in prison. He did not bother to appeal, he said, because “when they sentence you for
this crime, it’s not worth appealing.” He was sent to Cuba Sí! prison.
Rodríguez’s problems with prison authorities began as soon as he arrived. He did not want
to participate in mandatory “re-education” classes, which he said were dedicated to political
indoctrination. As a result, he was placed in solitary confinement for 17 days. The cell had an
open toilet in the middle of the floor, a cement platform for a bed, and, for a blanket, the
leaves of a plantain tree.
When not in solitary confinement, Rodríguez was held in overcrowded cells of 80 to 100
prisoners convicted of violent crimes. He said that he and the other political prisoners were
moved to different cells every few months—a strategy that he said left them more vulnerable
to attacks by common prisoners, who were hostile to newcomers. He was also repeatedly
punished for using his telephone calls to report abuses to human rights defenders outside
of the prison. He said he was denied meals, medical attention, and access to the outdoors,
and that there was no one to report the abuses to inside the prison.
Rodríguez was released on parole in July 2008, and resumed his participation in monitoring
human rights and attending unsanctioned meetings. He lived under constant surveillance,
he said, and was detained several times, during which authorities threatened to re-arrest
him if he did not abandon his “antisocial behavior.”
His family also suffered constant harassment. An official visited Rodríguez’s wife, telling her
that she would save herself trouble by divorcing her husband. His mother was issued
citations and threatened by officials, and police conducted an investigation into his father’s
activities as well.

17

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Human Rights Watch last spoke to Rodríguez in April 2009. According to human rights
defenders in Cuba, the following month he was arrested again, and sentenced to two years
for “public disorder” in a closed, summary trial.8

8

“Report on the Human Rights Situation in Cuba, August 2009,” post to “Council of Human Rights Reporters of Cuba”
(Consejo de Relatores de Derechos Humanos de Cuba), (blog), September 8, 2009,
http://derechoshumanoscuba.blogspot.com/2009/10/informe-agosto-de-2009.html (accessed September 10, 2009).

New Castro, Same Cuba

18

III. Methodology
Lack of Cooperation by the Cuban Government
The Cuban government aggressively works to prevent Cubans from documenting human
rights abuses and sharing information with the international community. Nearly all
dissidents’ trials are closed to independent observers, journalists, human rights defenders,
and foreign diplomats. The individuals detained, prosecuted, imprisoned, or subject to any
other disciplinary action are consistently denied documentation of their cases.
In the rare instances that dissidents or their family members are allowed access to trials,
official documents, or other information about repression, they face considerable obstacles
and risks in trying to disseminate it. Cubans lack basic access to mediums of
communication such as the internet, fax machines, and sometimes even phones—and the
channels that are available are under constant surveillance by the government. Moreover,
individuals who do share such information with international human rights organizations,
foreign media outlets, or multilateral institutions are subject to harassment, loss of
employment, beatings, and imprisonment under laws that explicitly criminalize the
dissemination of such information.
Human Rights Watch repeatedly requested meetings with the Cuban government to discuss
the issues raised in this report, directing requests to the Cuban Interests Section in
Washington, D.C. and the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations New York. We
also requested permission to visit Cuba, in hopes that the government would break with its
practice of denying international human rights delegations access to the island.
Unfortunately, Cuban officials never responded to any of these requests (See Appendix 2:
Human Rights Watch Letters to the Cuban Government).
This overall lack of transparency underscores the central finding of this report: not only does
the Cuban government abuse fundamental freedoms, but it even punishes the
documentation of such repression.

Sources and Research
In spite of these obstacles, Human Rights Watch was able to conduct more than 60
extensive interviews with human rights defenders, journalists, former political prisoners,
family members of current political prisoners, members of the clergy, independent trade

19

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

unionists, members of unauthorized political groups, and other Cuban citizens between
December 2008 and September 2009. The interviews were conducted over the phone and
during a fact-finding mission to Cuba in June and July 2009, during which we conducted
interviews in seven of the country’s fourteen provinces. These testimonies, drawn from a
range of civil society members from across Cuba, establish a clear pattern of repression,
from the tactics used to the types of individuals targeted.
Human Rights Watch was able to obtain copies of nearly twenty documents, including
indictments of political prisoners, official warnings for “dangerousness,” refusals of parole
and permission to travel, and other legal documents. These documents, which were
acquired from family members of political prisoners, unofficial civil society groups, and local
human rights defenders, affirm the patterns of abuse established by the testimonies. In
addition, we conducted an in-depth review of Cuba’s laws, which provide the legal
underpinning for criminalizing dissent. Finally, we extensively researched press accounts—
both from Cuba’s government-run papers and from the island’s independent (and thus
illegal) press—as well as reports produced by local groups and international bodies such as
the UN.
These sources of information are as diverse as any that can be assembled in examining a
country whose government fails to cooperate with international human rights monitoring.
Together, they allowed Human Rights Watch to establish the systematic pattern of abuse by
Raúl Castro’s government documented in this report.

Who Is a “Dissident”?
This report will use the term “dissident” to refer to any individual who expresses dissent
toward the government. This includes a broad range of nonviolent actors in Cuba, including
human rights defenders, journalists, and trade unionists, as well as members of political
groups, religious organizations, and other civil society groups not recognized by the Cuban
government, and thus considered illegal. It also consists of people unaffiliated with any
group who criticize the government or who abstain from cooperating with the state in some
way. These diverse individuals do not share a single ideology, affiliation, or objective.
It is not uncommon for dissidents in Cuba to exercise their dissent through more than one
medium. A person, for example, may belong to an unauthorized political group and
simultaneously monitor human rights abuses. We consider this individual a human rights
defender, a political activist, and a dissident. At points in this report we will refer to such
individuals solely using the umbrella term of “dissident.” The Cuban government, however,

New Castro, Same Cuba

20

does not differentiate between these individuals or their forms of expression, branding all
dissent as “counterrevolutionary” activity and thus worthy of punishment.

Anonymity and Security
Because of the risk for Cubans in speaking to outside organizations, Human Rights Watch
took several precautionary steps to protect the security of its interviewees. All individuals
with whom we spoke were given the option to remain anonymous in the report, to exclude
information that might reveal their identities, or to leave their stories out of the report
altogether.
In preparation for its fact-finding mission to Cuba, Human Rights Watch did not inform
contacts of the pending visit so as not to attract surveillance or put individuals at risk. When
conducting research on the island, we limited interviews to roughly an hour and did not stay
for longer than necessary in any one location. Where interviews in Cuba are cited in the
report, some names, dates, and locations of sources have been omitted. In spite of these
precautions, some individuals interviewed for this report suffered reprisal after speaking to
Human Rights Watch.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

IV. The Legal Foundation of Repression in Cuba
Cuban law empowers the state to criminalize virtually all forms of dissent. While it includes
broad statements affirming fundamental rights, Cuban law also grants officials extraordinary
authority to penalize individuals who attempt to exercise their rights. All rights are
conditional on compliance with the government. Article 62 of the constitution explicitly
states that no rights may be exercised against the state and makes punishable any failure to
respect this subordination of rights.
Cubans who dare to criticize the government are subject to draconian criminal and “precriminal” charges. These include the Orwellian “dangerousness” provision, which can be
used to punish individuals who have not yet committed a crime, on the suspicion that they
will commit one in the future; as well as the National Protection Law, which is so broad that
it renders any criticism of the government prosecutable as a form of collaboration with the
US embargo and thus treason.
Cuba’s judiciary lacks independence, denying dissidents meaningful judicial protection and
ensuring that those tried will not receive a fair trial. The constitution states that the judiciary
is “subordinated hierarchically” to the executive and legislative branches, which have the
power to remove judges at any time. And the Cuban government denies victims of abuse
virtually all external protections by refusing to allow monitoring by independent domestic
groups, international human rights organizations, and groups such as the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Criminalizing Dissent
The Cuban Criminal Code lies at the core of Cuba's repressive machinery, granting Cuban
authorities extraordinary power to silence dissent. Numerous Cuban criminal provisions
explicitly penalize the exercise of fundamental freedoms, while others are so vaguely
defined as to offer Cuban officials broad discretion in repressing critics.
Cuban authorities routinely characterize peaceful government opponents as
“counterrevolutionaries,” “mercenaries,” and “traitors,” and then use these classifications
to sentence them under laws protecting Cuban sovereignty.
Cuba’s invocation of state security interests to control nonviolent dissent—for acts as
innocuous as publishing articles critical of the government, handing out copies of human

New Castro, Same Cuba

22

rights treaties, or holding peaceful marches—represents a clear abuse of authority. Under
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, restrictions of fundamental rights are only
permissible:
for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and
freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public
order and the general welfare in a democratic society.9
Cuba’s efforts to silence critics fall far outside of these limits.
The Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to
Information specify certain types of expression that should always be protected, including
expression that:
•
•
•

“advocates non-violent change of government policy or the government itself”;
“constitutes criticism of, or insult to, the nation, the state or its symbols, the
government, its agencies, or public officials”; and
“is directed at communicating information about alleged violations of international
human rights standards or international humanitarian law.”10

All of these forms of expression are punishable under Cuban law.

Contempt
Cuba penalizes anyone who “threatens, libels or slanders, defames, affronts or in any other
way insults or offends, with the spoken word or in writing, the dignity or decorum of an
authority, public functionary, or his agents or auxiliaries.”11 Such expressions of contempt
9

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted December 10, 1948, G.A. Res. 217A(III), UN Doc. A/810 at 71 (1948),
art. 29(2).

10

The Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (Johannesburg
Principles), E/CN.4/1996/39(1996), Principles 2(a), 7(a)i, 7(a)ii, and 7(a)iv. An authoritative set of guidelines regarding
permissible limitations which may be placed on freedom of expression, adopted in 1996—were drafted by an international
team of legal scholars, diplomats, and United Nations human rights specialists meeting in Johannesburg.
The Johannesburg Principles also distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate invocations of national security interests.
Legitimate reasons to invoke national security interests are to: “protect a country’s existence or its territorial integrity against
the use or threat of force, or its capacity to respond to the threat or use of force, whether from an external source, such as a
military threat, or an internal source, such as incitement to violent overthrow of the government.” In contrast, illegitimate
justifications for invoking national security interests include acting to: “protect the government from embarrassment or
exposure of wrongdoing, or to entrench a particular ideology, or to conceal information about the functioning of its public
institutions, or to suppress industrial action.”
11

Código Penal (Criminal Code), Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, No. 62, 2001,
http://www.gacetaoficial.cu/html/codigo_penal.html (accessed January 12, 2009), art. 144. The National Assembly is Cuba’s

23

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

for authority (desacato) are punishable by three months to one year in prison, plus a fine. If
the person demonstrates contempt for the president of the Council of the State, the
president of the National Assembly, or other high ranking officials—the sanction is
imprisonment for one to three years.12
Contempt or “insult” laws, which criminalize expressions deemed to offend the honor of
public officials and institutions, directly contravene international human rights norms.13 The
Inter-American and European human rights systems both consider contempt and insult laws
incompatible with the free debate essential to democratic society. In a landmark 1995 report,
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) concluded that these laws are
incompatible with article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which protects
the right to freedom of thought and expression. The commission noted that “the fear of
criminal sanctions necessarily discourages people from voicing their opinions on issues of
public concern particularly when the legislation fails to distinguish between facts and value
judgments.”14
Similarly the European Court of Human Rights has stressed that the protection of freedom of
expression must extend not only to information or ideas that are widely accepted, but also to
those that “offend, shock or disturb.” As the European Court noted in a case involving a
politician accused of insulting the government of Spain, “Such are the demands of that
pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no democratic society.”15
highest legislative body, while the Council of State is its highest executive body. The structure of the Cuban government is
discussed in greater detail in the section Denying Judicial Protection.
12

Ibid.

13

Insult laws are “a class of legislation that criminalizes expression which offends, insults, or threatens a public functionary
in the performance of his or her official duties.” Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), “Report on the
Compatibility of Desacato Laws with the American Convention on Human Rights,” Annual Report of the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights 1994, OEA/Ser/.L/V/11.88, 1995, http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/94eng/chap.5.htm (accessed
September 15, 2009). The offense does not necessarily involve a false assertion; for this reason proving its truth is generally
no defense. Moreover, it is usually classified not only as a detriment to the honor of the public official in question but also to
his or her office. By extension it is often considered an offense against public order.
14

The commission wrote, “[t]he special protection desacato laws afford public functionaries from insulting or offensive
language is not congruent with the objective of a democratic society to foster public debate.” It also noted that in democratic
societies, political and public figures must be more, not less, open to public scrutiny and criticism. “Since these persons are
at the center of public debate, they knowingly expose themselves to public scrutiny and thus must display a greater degree of
tolerance for criticism.” IACHR, Report on the Compatibility of Desacato Laws, 1994.
More recently, in Palamara Iribarne v. Chile (2005), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held that “in the case of public
officials, individuals who perform public services, politicians, and government institutions a different threshold of protection
should be applied, which is not based on the specific individual, but on the fact that the activities or conduct of a certain
individual is of public interest.” Inter-American Court, Palamara Iribarne Case, Judgment of November 22, 2005, Inter-Am Ct.
H.R. (Ser. C) No. 35 (2005), http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_135_ing.pdf (accessed September 15,
2009), para. 88.
15

European Court of Human Rights, Castells v. Spain, Judgment of 23 April, 1992, Series A no. 236, p. 22, available at
www.echr.coe.int, para. 42.

New Castro, Same Cuba

24

In a joint declaration, the special rapporteurs on freedom of expression of the United
Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Organization of
American States recommended in 2000 that "laws which provide special protection for
public figures, such as desacato laws, should be repealed."16

Insubordination
The Cuban Criminal Code outlaws a range of forms of insubordination to authorities,
including “disobedience,” “resistance,” and “attacks” on government officials. Someone
who “disobeys the decisions of the authorities or public functionaries”—an act of
desobedencia—may be punished with imprisonment of three months to one year.17 An
individual who “resists an authority, public functionary, or his agents or auxiliaries in the
exercise of his functions”—an act of resistencia—may be punished with imprisonment of
three months to one year. If the resistance occurs while the authority is carrying out an arrest,
the prison sentence may rise to five years.18 And an individual who “employs violence or
intimidation against an authority, public functionary or his agents and auxiliaries”—an act of
atentado—may incur a sanction of one to eight years, depending on the nature of the
attack.19
The UN Committee against Torture raised concern about these “nebulous offences, namely
‘disrespect’, ‘resisting authority’ and ‘enemy propaganda’,” in a 1998 report on Cuba, noting
that such laws posed a risk “because of the uncertainty of their constituent elements and
the room they provide for misuse and abuse.”20
It is appropriate to criminalize physical attacks on officials and there are limited
circumstances in which even acts of disobedience and resistance to officials may be
properly outlawed, as with suspects resisting arrest. But, as a number of cases documented
here illustrate, Cuba uses these overly broad provisions to punish individuals who engage in

16

“Joint declaration issued by Abid Hussain, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression; Freimut Duve,
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media; and Santiago Cantón, OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression,”
United Nations press release, December 1, 2000,
http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/EFE58839B169CC09C12569AB002D02C0?opendocument (accessed
September 15, 2009).

17

Criminal Code, art. 147.

18

Criminal Code, art. 143.

19

Criminal Code, art. 142.

20

UN Committee against Torture (CAT), “Report of the Committee against Torture: Conclusions and Recommendations, Cuba,”
CAT/C/SR.314, March 27, 1998, Section D, para. 4.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

peaceful activities, including forming independent unions and attending unsanctioned
meetings.

Collaboration with the United States
The Law for the Protection of Cuban National Independence and the Economy21 (Ley de
Protección de la Independencia Nacional y la Economía de Cuba, hereafter the National
Protection Law), which took effect in March 1999, creates harsh penalties for actions that
could be interpreted as supporting or collaborating with the objectives of the US HelmsBurton Act.
Helms-Burton, which became US law in March 1996, tightened the US economic embargo on
Cuba and set out a plan to assist Cuba once it began a transition to democracy.22 In
response, Cuban authorities passed the National Protection Law, which prohibits:
those actions designed to support, facilitate, or collaborate with the
objectives of the “Helms-Burton” Law, the blockade, and the economic war
against our people, leading toward the destruction of internal order, the
destabilization of the country and the liquidation of the socialist state and
the independence of Cuba.23
The National Protection Law is often used in conjunction with article 91 of the Cuban
Criminal Code (hereafter article 91), which punishes any act made “for the purpose of
undermining the independence of the Cuban state or the integrity of its territory” with ten to
twenty years in prison or the death penalty.24
While the preamble to the National Protection Law provides that it will not infringe upon the
“fundamental guarantees” afforded by the Cuban constitution,25 most of the specific
21

Ley de protección de la independencia nacional y la economía de Cuba (The Law for the Protection of Cuban National
Independence and the Economy), Gaceta Oficial de la República de Cuba, No. 88, 1999,
http://www.cubavsbloqueo.cu/Default.aspx?tabid=248 (accessed March 13, 2009) (“National Protection Law”).
22

Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996, 104th Congress of the United States, Public Law 104-114,
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=104_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ114.104.pdf (accessed
March 14, 2009).

23

The National Protection Law, art. 1.

24

“Anyone who, in the interest of a foreign state, commits an act with the aim of undermining the independence of the Cuban
state or the integrity of its territory shall be punished by imprisonment of ten to twenty years or death” (“El que, en interés de
un Estado extranjero, ejecute un hecho con el objeto de que sufra detrimento la independencia del Estado cubano o la
integridad de su territorio, incurre en sanción de privación de libertad de diez a veinte años o muerte”). Criminal Code, art. 91.
25

The National Protection Law, Preamble.

New Castro, Same Cuba

26

provisions of the law target dissemination of opinions or exchanges of information—
activities that should be protected rather than penalized. The law’s overly broad definition of
proscribed activities grants officials extraordinary authority to punish government
opponents for exercising dissent.
For example, the law criminalizes the accumulation, reproduction, or distribution of
“material with a subversive character” with three to eight years of imprisonment.26 Cubans
risk two to five years in prison for ”collaborating in any way with radio or television stations ...
or other foreign media” deemed to be advancing Helms-Burton and related objectives.27
The law also creates seven- to twenty-year penalties for persons who commit “any act
designed to impede or prejudice the economic relations of the Cuban state or the economic
relations of any industrial, commercial, or financial institution or any other type of
institution.” Those whose actions influence the US government to take measures against
foreign investors in Cuba face the longest sanctions under this provision.28

Association
Although Cuban law guarantees the rights of association and assembly, it also empowers
the state to deny these rights to groups that are critical of the government.29 Cuba’s
Associations Law (Ley de Asociaciones) entrusts the Justice Ministry with reviewing all
aspiring associations. According to the law, the ministry must refuse legal status to groups:
•
•
•

“whose activities could prove damaging to social interests”;
“whose applications demonstrate the impossibility of attaining their proposed
objectives and activities”; and
“whose objectives or denomination is similar or identical to another registered
[association],” among other qualifications.30

26

The National Protection Law, art. 6(1).

27

The National Protection Law, arts. 4(1) and 4(2).

28

The National Protection Law, arts. 9(1) and 9(2).

29

Constitución de la República de Cuba (Cuban constitution), 2002,
http://www.gacetaoficial.cu/html/constitucion_de_la_republica.html (accessed January 11, 2009), art. 54.
30

Ley de Asociaciones (Associations Law), Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, No. 54, 1985,
http://www.asanac.gov.cu/espanol/leyes/Ley%20N%BA%2054%20Asociaciones.html, arts. 8(c), 8(ch), 8(d).

27

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

These regulations condition the right to associate upon cooperation with the “social
interests” of the state and other arbitrary guidelines, effectively allowing the government to
deny recognition to any group critical of its actions.
Even associations that are granted legal status are subject to constant review by the state,
and may have their recognition revoked at any time. The Regulations for the Associations
Law (Reglamento de la Ley de Asociaciones) empowers government officials to disband any
association “whose activities become damaging to the social welfare.”31
The government has consistently refused to recognize associations that are critical of its
policies and practices. Human Rights Watch was unable to document a single local civil
society organization that expresses dissent—including alternative political parties, human
rights groups, independent labor unions, journalist associations, and other groups—that has
received approval from the state to operate.
Not only is recognition denied to such groups, but individuals who participate in “illicit”
groups, meetings, or demonstrations without state authorization are subject to harassment,
discrimination, and even criminal sanctions. According to the Criminal Code, belonging to an
“illicit” association may be punished with imprisonment for three months to a year, as well
as fines; while attending an unapproved meeting or demonstration may result in fines and a
sentence of one to three months.32

“Dangerousness”
The most Orwellian of all of Cuba’s laws is the “pre-criminal” offense of “dangerousness.” A
law which has been in existence for some time, it allows individuals deemed “dangerous” to
be imprisoned before they have committed or planned any crime, merely on the suspicion
that they are likely to offend in the future.33 Not only is the law completely arbitrary and
subjective, but it is also explicitly political. Human Rights Watch opposes the unlawful use of
preventative and pre-emptive detention—in particular for the purpose of social control and
31

Reglamento de la Ley de Asociaciones (Regulations for the Associations Law), Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, No. 56,
1986, art. 79(b).

32

Criminal Code, arts. 208 and 209.

33

This law is not to be confused with the offenses of conspiracy or attempt under which a person can be arrested and
prosecuted before a crime has been committed or completed, but where a decision to commit a specific crime has been
reached. Conspiracy is when a person has made an agreement with at least one other person to commit a specific criminal
offense. Generally, in law, to prove conspiracy it is necessary to show that such an agreement—formal or informal—exists, and
that at least one overt act in the furtherance of the agreed crime has taken place. Attempt is when a person, either alone or
with others, makes a substantial but unsuccessful effort to commit a crime. Generally, in law, to prove attempt there must be
intent to commit the crime, an overt act beyond mere preparation, and an apparent ability to complete the crime.

New Castro, Same Cuba

28

when it circumvents minimum procedural guarantees—irrespective of the context or the
government implementing it for this reason.34
The Criminal Code defines “dangerousness” as “the special proclivity of a person to commit
crimes, demonstrated by conduct that is observed to be in manifest contradiction with the
norms of socialist morality.”35 In other words, “dangerousness” is a pre-criminal state in
which a person’s behavior suggests that he or she is of the type likely to commit a crime in
the future. This behavior may manifest itself in habitual drunkenness, drug addiction, or
“antisocial behavior.”36 When “dangerousness” is applied to persons who voice dissent, it
is most commonly for exhibiting “antisocial behavior.”37
A person engaged in “antisocial behavior” is one who:
habitually breaks the rules of social coexistence by committing acts of
violence, or by other provocative acts, violates the rights of others or by his
or her general behavior breaks the rules of coexistence or disturbs the order
of the community or lives, like a social parasite, off the work of others or
exploits or practices socially reprehensible vices.38

34

This does not include cases of legitimate pre-trial detention of persons held on criminal charges, provided for in
international law.
35

Criminal Code, art. 72.

36

Criminal Code, art. 73(1).

37

The United Kingdom and Ireland also have legislation which renders “anti-social behavior” subject to sanction by way of a
civil order from a court. See the UK Anti-social Behaviour Act of 2003 and Irish Criminal Justice Act of 2006, parts 11 and 13.
Anti-social Behaviour Bill, The House of Commons of the United Kingdom, 2003,
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmbills/083/2003083.pdf (accessed September 5, 2009); Criminal
Justice Act of 2006, The Houses of the Oireachtas of Ireland, No. 26 of 2006,
http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2006/A2606.pdf (accessed September 5, 2009), parts 11 and 13.
Anti-social behavior is generally defined as that which causes harassment, significant or persistent alarm, distress, fear, or
intimidation to someone who is not from the same household as the offender. The order directs the offender not to engage in
specific conduct such as vandalism or begging, and failure to comply with the order may result in a fine or detention. While
these anti-social behavior orders are civil not criminal measures and are subject to specific conditions, they have still been
very controversial and widely criticized by human rights organizations and bodies. Council of Europe: Commissioner for
Human Rights, “Report by Mr. Alvaro Gil-Robles on his visit to the United Kingdom, 4th November to 12th November 2004,”
CommDH(2005) 6, Strasbourg, June 8, 2005, paras. 108 - 120; Council of Europe: Commissioner for Human Rights,”
Memorandum by Mr. Thomas Hammarberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, following his visits to the
United Kingdom 5-8 February and 31 March-2 April 2009,” CommDH (2008) 27, Strasbourg, October 17, 2008, paras. 29 - 30;
United Nations Human Rights Committee, Concluding Observations on the United Kingdom, CCPR/C/GBR/CO/6, July 30, 2008,
para. 20.; United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations on the United Kingdom,
CRC/C/GBR/CO/4, October 4, 2008 para. 79 – 80.
38

Criminal Code, art. 73(2).

29

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

The Cuban Criminal Code states that the government may punish “antisocial behavior”
through “pre-criminal measures” (medidas predelectivas), which are preventive measures
applied before a crime is committed.39
The law assigns two types of “pre-criminal measures” for “antisocial behavior.” One is “reeducation,” which is ostensibly carried out in specialized work or study centers, or in work
collectives (colectivos de trabajo),40 for a duration of one to four years. 41 The other is
“orientation and control of conduct” by the National Revolutionary Police, which is applied
for the same duration.42
The concept of “re-education” contravenes international standards protecting freedom of
thought. And as the subsequent chapters of this report show, dissidents sentenced under
the “dangerousness” provision are routinely sent not to special work centers, but to regular
prisons, where they are held alongside prisoners convicted of violent offenses. These
individuals are effectively imprisoned for crimes that were never committed.
All cases of “dangerousness” are to be processed “summarily,”43 with judges determining
the duration and type of punishment based on the person’s level of dangerousness.44 Judges
may modify the sentence at any time, either on their own initiative or at the suggestion of the
officials responsible for “re-educating” or “orienting” the individuals sentenced.45
The law also states that an individual who is at risk of being charged with “dangerousness”
should receive an official warning in writing, “to prevent the individual from pursuing
socially dangerous or criminal activities.”46 Such warnings are in theory designed to inform
individuals why they are at risk of being charged with “dangerousness” so that they can
modify their behavior. They are also supposed to offer the accused an opportunity to provide

39

Criminal Code, art. 80.

40

Criminal Code, art. 80(1).

41

Criminal Code, art. 81(3).

42

Criminal Code, arts. 80 and 81.

43

“Summarily” is defined by 12 provisions laid out in article 415. Ley de Procedimiento Penal (Criminal Procedural Law),

Gaceta Oficial de la República de Cuba, No. 5, 1977, art. 415.
44

Criminal Code, art. 82.

45

This modification can be made according to the court’s discretion (de oficio) or at the request of the “agency in charge of its
execution” (organo encargado de su ejecución). Criminal Code, art. 83(1).
46

Criminal Code, art. 75(1).

New Castro, Same Cuba

30

their own account of their behavior, which, according to the law, is supposed to be included
in the written warning.47
An individual may even receive an “official warning” for having ties to people who are
considered dangerous. The law states that as a result of “an individual’s ties or relations
with persons who are potentially dangerous to society ... that individual may become prone
to crime.”48 By this reasoning, being connected to someone likely to commit a crime
translates into a kind of “dangerousness” by proximity.
The “dangerousness” law is essentially a status law—criminalizing individuals for who they
are or for a proclivity rather than for criminal acts. As such, it violates the basic principle that
criminal law should target specific conduct accompanied by the requisite intent.49 As the
Inter-American Court has ruled, “crimes must be classified and described in precise and
unambiguous language that narrowly defines the punishable offense.”50 Human rights
standards and the rule of law require that the law be foreseeable and predictable, obligating
states to define precisely and in a foreseeable manner all criminal offences.51 The law also
undermines basic due process and fair trial rights, such as the presumption of innocence, in
that it punishes individuals on the presumption that they may commit an offense.
Finally, the “dangerousness” law offends against basic human rights standards, as it seeks
to criminalize lawful behavior protected by human rights law—that is, the exercise of
freedom of opinion, expression, and association, and the right not to be deprived of liberty
and security without due process of law.

47

Criminal Code, art. 75(2).

48

Criminal Code, art. 75(1).

49

The legal maxim, nulla poena sine lege (no penalty without a law), is the basis for requiring clarity in the law.

50

Inter-American Court, Castillo Petruzzi et al. Case, Judgment of May 30, 1999, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R., (Ser. C) No. 52 (1999),
http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_52_esp.pdf (accessed September 15, 2009), para. 121.
51

The doctrine and rationale were set out by the Inter-American Court in a case against Peru, when it explained, “crimes must
be classified and described in precise and unambiguous language that narrowly defines the punishable offense.” InterAmerican Court, Castillo Petruzzi et al. Case, Judgment of May 30, 1999, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R., (Ser. C) No. 52 (1999),
http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_52_esp.pdf (accessed August 20, 2009), para. 121.
The requirement of “clarity” of the law is to be found in two aspects of human rights law. Firstly, it is required when defining
proscribed criminal behavior in penal statutes –a doctrine often referred to as the “void for vagueness” doctrine enshrined in
article 15 of the ICCPR and article 9 of the ACHR. And secondly, it is required in the limitations on the enjoyment of certain
fundamental rights, which must be prescribed by, established by, or in accordance with “law” (such as those enshrined in
articles 17 – 22 of the ICCPR or articles 12 – 13, 15 – 17 of the ACHR). Manfred Nowak, UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
CCPR Commentary, 2nd rev. ed,. (Kehl am Rhein: Engel, 2005), p.361.

31

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Restricting Rights
The Cuban constitution contains a broad range of guarantees of fundamental rights. Yet it
conditions those rights on conformity to the government and its socialist project.52
The constitution pledges "the full freedom and dignity of men, [and] the enjoyment of their
rights..."53 These include the freedom of expression and press,54 the right to a competent
tribunal and legal defense,55 the right to assemble, protest, and associate,56 and freedom of
conscience and religion,57 among others.
However, the constitution explicitly states that none of these rights can be exercised against
the state. Article 62 states that:
None of the rights recognized for citizens may be exercised against that
which is established in the Constitution and the laws, nor against the
existence and the ends of the socialist state, nor against the decision of the
Cuban people to construct socialism and communism.58
Because the constitution explicitly recognizes the Cuban Communist Party as “the superior
leading force of society and the State,”59 by extension no fundamental freedoms can be
exercised if they run contrary to the Communist Party.
The constitution also deems the failure to subordinate basic freedoms to the goals of the
state “punishable,” according to article 62, meaning that any judge, prosecutor, or
government official who upholds such rights may him or herself be criminally sanctioned. 60
And it broadly empowers Cuban citizens to fight against anyone who opposes the state,
granting them the right, “to combat in all forms, including through armed struggle, when

52

Parts of this section are drawn from Human Rights Watch, Cuba’s Repressive Machinery (New York: Human Rights Watch,
1999), http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1999/cuba/ pp. 27-68. The legal and institutional underpinnings of Cuba’s
repression have changed little since publication of that report.
53

Cuban constitution, art. 9A.

54

Ibid., art. 53.

55

Ibid., art. 59.

56

Ibid., art. 54.

57

Ibid., art. 55.

58

Ibid., art. 62.

59

Ibid., art. 5.

60

Ibid., art. 62.

New Castro, Same Cuba

32

another option is not available, against anyone who tries to overthrow the political, social, or
economic order established by this Constitution.”61
Beyond the ideological conformity and conditionality of rights created by the provisions
detailed above, several constitutional articles restrict the very rights they claim to ensure.
Freedom of speech and the press, for example, exist ”in accordance with the goals of the
socialist society.”62 In its contradictory logic, the constitution claims to ensure free speech
and a free press by mandating that “press, radio, television, films, and other mass media are
state or social property, and may in no instance be the object of private ownership.”63
While Cuba’s constitution also provides that state officials who commit abuses will face
consequences and victims will receive restitution, in practice authorities do not enforce
these rights. The most vigorous provision on accountability provides that:
Any person who suffers damage or injury wrongfully caused by State officials
or agents, in connection with the discharge of the duties inherent in their
positions, is entitled to demand and obtain the pertinent reparation or
compensation in the manner stipulated by law.64
The constitution directs that state officials responsible for coercing statements “shall incur
the penalties established by law.”65 Another provision grants every citizen the right “to
address complaints and petitions to the authorities,” and to receive a response “within a
suitable period of time, according to law.”66
Cuba’s utter lack of judicial and prosecutorial independence ensures that when officials
commit abuses, they are not held accountable by the courts and their actions are not taken
into account when considering the culpability of dissidents.

61

Ibid., art. 3.

62

Ibid., art. 53.

63

Ibid.

64

Ibid., art. 26.

65

Ibid., art. 59.

66

Ibid., art. 64.

33

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Denying Judicial Protection
The Cuban judiciary is not an independent branch of government, but is subordinate to the
legislative branch and ultimately to the head of state.
Although the Cuban constitution states that judges are “independent, and owe obedience
solely to the law,”67 it also explicitly establishes that courts are “subordinated hierarchically
to the National Assembly and the Council of State.”68 Furthermore, the Law of the Popular
Tribunals (Ley 82 de los Tribunales Populares) states that the courts “are obligated to
comply with... the instructions of a general nature originating from the Council of State.”69
The Council of State is Cuba’s 31-member executive body, which is presided over by
President Raúl Castro.
The constitution grants the National Assembly of People’s Power (hereafter, National
Assembly)—Cuba’s highest legislative body—the authority to appoint and dismiss members
of the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo Popular), the attorney general, and all deputy
attorneys general.70 These judges and prosecutors must report at least once a year to the
National Assembly,71 which retains the authority to remove them at any time.72 Similarly,
judges in Cuba’s municipal and provincial courts are appointed and are subject to dismissal
by municipal and provincial assemblies.73 Like the National Assembly, these lower
assemblies are empowered to receive reports from the respective judiciaries and remove
judges at any time.74 The process by which judges are appointed and removed undermines
the security of tenure, a key element of judicial independence.

67

Ibid., art. 122.

68

Ibid., art. 121.

69

Ley de los tribunales populares (Law of the Popular Tribunals), Gaceta Oficial de la República de Cuba, No. 82, 1997,
http://www.gacetaoficial.cu/html/tribunalespopulares.html (accessed April 7, 2009), art. 5 (“Law 82”).
70

According to the Cuban constitution, the Attorney General is “the body of the State concerned with control and preservation
of legality as fundamental objectives.” Cuban constitution, art. 75 (m) and (n); Criminal Procedural Law, art. 45.
71

Cuban constitution, art. 130.

72

Ibid., art. 129.

73

The Cuban government lists 171 municipal courts, one for each municipality; and 15 provincial courts for the 14 provinces
and la Isla de Juventud. Ibid., art. 105(h); Supreme Court, (Tribunal Supremo Popular), mapa de los Tribunales Provinciales
Populares, http://www.tsp.cu/Archivos/Principal_TPP.asp (accessed September 22, 2009); Supreme Court, (Tribunal
Supremo Popular), “Tribunales Municipales Populares,” http://www.tsp.cu/Archivos/tribunales_municipales.asp (accessed
September 22, 2009).
74

Cuban constitution, arts. 128 and 129. See also Law 82, art. 46.

New Castro, Same Cuba

34

The lack of judicial independence in Cuba is inextricably linked to the lack of legislative
independence. In theory, the composition of the 614 member75 National Assembly is
determined by direct elections held every five years through a “free, direct, and secret”
vote.76 The constitution states that all Cuban citizens over the age of 18 have the right to be
elected to the assembly.77 But in reality, the selection of candidates is a highly controlled
political process. A 1992 Electoral Law requires that the number of candidates on the ballot
for the National Assembly equal the number of open positions.78 To determine the
candidates, a short list is drawn up by a national commission made up of representatives
from all of the major official mass organizations, such as the Cuban Workers Federation.
That short list is then passed along to another state-run commission, which selects a single
candidate for each position.79 As a result, the only way for voters to register dissent is to
write in candidates or leave ballots blank.
Real power in the Cuban government is vested not in the National Assembly, but in the
Council of State, which the constitution calls “supreme representation of the Cuban State.”80
The 31-member council carries out all legislative functions when the assembly is not in
session, which is most of the year.81 Though by law the National Assembly elects the Council
of State and may override its decrees,82 in practice it is the council that controls the
composition and agenda of the National Assembly, and by extension Cuba’s judiciary. The
council can appoint ministers and other high level officials, issue decrees with the force of
law, declare war, and ratify treaties, among other powers.83
The Council of State is headed by a president, who is also the president of the Council of
Ministers, Cuba’s main executive body. It is a staggering and disproportionate concentration

75

The exact number of delegates is determined by the size and proportional distribution of the Cuban population. Cuban
constitution, art. 135.

76

Ibid.

77

Ibid., art. 133.

78

Jorge I. Domínguez, “Government and Politics,” in Cuba: A Country Study , ed. Rex A. Hudson (Washington: US Government

Printing Office, 2002), http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jidoming/images/jid_government.pdf (accessed September 22,
2009), p. 234.
79

Ibid., 234. Other organizations include: Cuban Workers Federation (CTC), Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), Committee for
the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), Federation of University Students, and
Federation of Secondary School Students (FEEM).

80

Cuban constitution, art. 89.

81

Ibid. The National Assembly only meets for two or three sessions of a few days each year.

82

Cuban constitution, art. 75(n).

83

Domínguez, “Government and Politics,” p. 235; Cuban constitution, art. 90.

35

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

of power in a single position: this head of state essentially wields power over the executive,
legislative, and judicial branches of government.
Judicial independence is further weakened by the involvement of lay judges (jueces legos) in
proceedings, who serve alongside professional judges on both the municipal and provincial
courts. In these courts, lay judges occupy two of the three seats on the judges’ panel—a
majority.84 Lay judges lack the formal legal training of professional judges and are elected by
local assemblies whose composition is completely controlled by the Cuban Communist
Party.85 The law states that these judges must “maintain a good attitude before the work or
the activity of social interest which they carry out,” and that they “possess ... good moral
conditions and enjoy high standing in public opinion,”86 qualifications which in the Cuban
context are used to ensure ideological allegiance, and which call into question judges’
impartiality.87
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has emphasized the essential link
between judicial independence and democratic rule of law:
The observance of rights and freedoms in a democracy requires a legal and
institutional order in which the laws prevail over the will of the rulers, and in
which there is judicial review of the constitutionality and legality of the acts
of public power, i.e., it presupposes respect for the rule of law. Judiciaries are
established to ensure compliance with laws; they are clearly the
fundamental organs for preventing the abuse of power and protecting human
rights. To fulfill this function, they must be independent and impartial.88
In addition to the Inter-American Charter, other human rights treaties—including the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the American Convention on

84

Law 82, arts. 35 and 38.

85

Law 82, art. 49.

86

Law 82, art. 43.

87

“The judiciary shall decide matters before them impartially, on the basis of facts and in accordance with the law, without
any restrictions, improper influences, inducements, pressures, threats, or interferences, direct or indirect, from any quarter or
for any reason.” Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary, adopted by the Seventh United Nations Congress on
the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Milan, 26 August to 6 September 1985, U.N. Doc. A/CONF. 121/22/Rev.
1 at 59 (1985), art. 2.
88

IACHR, “Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Venezuela,” OEA/Ser.L/V/II.118, December 29, 2003,
http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/venezuela2003eng/toc.htm (accessed September 3, 2009), paras. 150-151.

New Castro, Same Cuba

36

Human Rights—require states to protect the independence and impartiality of the judiciary.89
The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body that monitors the implementation of
the ICCPR, has ruled that for a tribunal to be “independent and impartial,”90 the executive
must not be able to control or direct the judiciary,91 judges “must not harbor preconceptions
about the matter put before them, and ... must not act in ways that promote the interests of
one of the parties.”92
The practical safeguards that this obligation entails are set forth in a series of “basic
principles” on the independence of the judiciary endorsed by the United Nations General
Assembly. These principles include:
•

•
•

The judiciary shall decide matters before them impartially, on the basis of facts and
in accordance with the law, without any restrictions, improper influences,
inducements, pressures, threats, or interferences, direct or indirect, from any quarter
or for any reason.
Persons selected for judicial office shall be individuals of integrity and ability with
appropriate training or qualifications in law.
The term of office of judges, their independence, security, adequate remuneration,
conditions of service, pensions, and the age of retirement shall be adequately
secured by law.93

As this chapter demonstrates, Cuba has flouted all of these principles, severely undermining
the rights of its citizens.

89

The American Convention on Human Rights provides that: “Every person has the right to a hearing, with due guarantees
and within a reasonable time, by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal, previously established by law, in the
substantiation of any accusation of a criminal nature made against him or for the determination of his rights and obligations
of (. . .) any other nature” (emphasis added). American Convention on Human Rights (“Pact of San José, Costa Rica”), adopted
November 22, 1969, O.A.S. Treaty Series No. 36, 1144 U.N.T.S. 123, entered into force July 18, 1978.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) also imposes an obligation to guarantee the independence of
the judiciary in article 14 (1): “All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals. In the determination of any criminal
charge against him, or of his rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a
competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law…” (emphasis added). International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, adopted December 16, 1966, General Assembly Resolution 2200 A (XXI), entered into force March 23, 1976,
signed by Cuba on February 28, 2008.
90

ICCPR, art. 14 (1).

91

UN Human Rights Committee, Decision: Bahamonde v. Equatorial Guinea, Communication No. 468/1991, October 20, 1993,
CCPR/C/49/D/468/1991, para. 9.4.

92

UN Human Rights Committee, Decision: Karttunen v. Finland, Communication No. 387/1989, October 23, 1992,
CCPR/C/46/D/387/1989, para. 7.2.

93

Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary, adopted by the Seventh United Nations Congress on the Prevention
of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Milan, 26 August to 6 September 1985, U.N. Doc. A/CONF. 121/22/Rev.1 at 59 (1985),
arts, 2, 10, and 11.

37

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Denying External Protections
Cuba is almost entirely closed to human rights monitoring. It is the only country in the
hemisphere that does not allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access to its
prisons. International human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, are
prohibited from carrying out human rights fact-finding missions. Cuba refused to engage in
dialogue or allow a visit from the Personal Representative of the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Christine Chanet, during her mandate from 2002 to 2007.94
In several instances Cuba has failed to fulfill its reporting requirements with the treaty
bodies of international human rights treaties it has ratified. It has not submitted reports to
the Committee on the Rights of the Child since 1995; to the Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination since 1997; and to Committee against Torture since 1996. It has also
not responded to requests for visits by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of
opinion and expression and the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion, in 2003 and
2006 respectively. It received a visit from the UN Special Rapporteurs on the right to food (in
2007) and violence against women (in 1999); and an invitation has been issued to the UN
Special Rapporteur on torture.95
Cuba has an obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights guaranteed under customary
international law and numerous international treaties it has ratified. It also has an obligation
to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of treaties, or take regressive
measures with respect to rights protected by them, which it has signed pending ratification.
The core provisions of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) are broadly recognized
as customary international law and an authoritative interpretation of the human rights
provisions in the UN Charter. Cuba has repeatedly stated that its domestic laws respect the
rights contained in the UDHR.96

94

UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Personal Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Christine
Chanet, on the Situation of Human Rights in Cuba, A/HRC/4/12, June 12, 2007.
95

UN Human Rights Council, Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, “Compilation Prepared by the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights [on Government of Cuba],” A/HRC/WG.6/4/CUB/2, December 18, 2008.

96

In its 2008 report to the UN’s Universal Periodic Review, Cuba stated, “Chapter VII of the Constitution, on ‘Fundamental
rights, duties and guarantees,’ basically sets forth the principles and guarantees of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
which are in line with the rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the other international human
rights instruments. These are complemented by other chapters of the Constitution and the provisions of ordinary law.”
Government of Cuba, Periodic Report to the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council, A/HRC/WG.6/4/CUB/1,
November 4, 2008.

New Castro, Same Cuba

38

In addition, Cuba has ratified several key international human rights treaties, which impose
on it the obligation to comply with the treaties’ provisions and incorporate their protections
into domestic legislation.97 Cuba signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR) in February 2008. As a result, according to the Vienna Convention on the Law of
Treaties, Cuba is obliged to refrain from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the
two covenants until they come into force.98 The Cuban government has also publicly
asserted its compliance with the provisions of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules
for the Treatment of Prisoners.99
Despite Cuba’s ratification or signing of key treaties, and its stated willingness to abide by
international standards including those set out in the UDHR, Cuban laws, institutions, and
practices continue to directly contravene the human rights of the Cuban people.

97

The key international human rights and labor agreements ratified by Cuba include the Convention against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified in May 1995; the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),
ratified in August 1991; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD); the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), ratified in June 1980; and various International Labor
Organization conventions, including Convention 87, the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize,
ratified in June 1952; Convention 98, the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, ratified April 1952;
Convention 105, the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, ratified June 1958; and Convention 141, the Rural Workers'
Organizations, ratified in April 1977.

98

By signing, a country “has expressed its consent to be bound by the treaty, pending the entry into force of the treaty and
provided that such entry into force is not unduly delayed.” Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, concluded May 23, 1969,
UN Doc. A/CONF.39/28, 1155 UNT.S. 331 (entered into force Jan. 27, 1980), art. 18.
In February 2009, Cuba’s Minister of Justice affirmed Cuba’s commitment to complying with the ICCPR and ICESCR, stating
before the UN Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review that: “We signed the international covenants on human rights
as a demonstration of our will and commitment to the postulates of both of these instruments.”

99

Government of Cuba, “Cuba is complying with the precepts of the International Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment
of Prisoners,” Statement by the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Cuba, María Esther Reus, Presentation of the National
Report to the Human Rights Council, Geneva, February 5, 2009,
http://america.cubaminrex.cu/DiscursosIntervenciones/Articulos/Otros/2009/2009-02-06-Ruas_ING.html (accessed April 19,
2009).

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

V. Political Prisoners
During the nearly five decades of Fidel Castro’s rule, Cuba repressed virtually all forms of
dissent using a wide range of abusive tactics, including imprisonment. While the denial of
fundamental freedoms throughout that time was unrelenting, Fidel Castro’s rule was also
marked by periods of heightened repression, such as the 2003 crackdown on 75 human
rights defenders, journalists, trade unionists, and other critics of the government. Accused
of being “mercenaries” of the US government, the individuals were summarily tried in closed
hearings. Fifty-three of those 75 prisoners continue to languish in Cuba’s prisons under Raúl
Castro.
Since taking over for his brother in July 2006, Raúl Castro has added scores of additional
political prisoners to the hundreds of dissidents in Cuba’s abusive prisons. To sentence
these individuals, Raúl Castro’s government has relied on many of the same laws that were
used routinely during Fidel Castro’s rule, including those punishing contempt and
insubordination. In addition, Raúl Castro has increasingly relied on the law criminalizing
“dangerousness.”
Human Rights Watch has documented more than 40 cases of dissidents who have been
sentenced for “dangerousness” under Raúl Castro. We believe there are many more. In
particular, the Cuban government has relied heavily on language in the provision that
classifies unemployment as a form of “antisocial behavior.” In a classic catch-22, critics of
the government are denied work because of their political beliefs, and then imprisoned for
not having work. Raúl Castro’s government not only applies the “dangerousness” provision
to dissidents, but to all Cubans who are unemployed or illegally self-employed—
demonstrating the extent to which any form of noncooperation with the Cuban government
is a punishable offense.

Repression under Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 after leading a revolution that toppled the government of
Fulgencio Batista and ruled by decree until 1976, when a new constitution—one whose
drafting he oversaw—reformed the structure of the government. From that time until he
transferred power to Raúl Castro in July 2006, Fidel Castro held all three of the most powerful
positions in Cuba’s government: president of the Council of State, president of the Council of
Ministers, and first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party.

New Castro, Same Cuba

40

Under Fidel Castro, Cuba repressed virtually all forms of dissent. His government used a
wide range of abusive tactics to enforce political conformity, including long-term
imprisonment, beatings, threats, and surveillance.100 The repression was codified in law,
carried out by security forces and groups of civilian sympathizers tied to the state, and
prosecuted by a judiciary that lacked independence. As a result, thousands of Cubans were
incarcerated in abysmal prisons, thousands more were harassed and intimidated, and entire
generations were denied basic rights.
While the denial of fundamental freedoms during Fidel Castro’s rule was unrelenting, the
Cuban government carried out periodic waves of heightened repression, marked by an
increase in arbitrary arrests of dissenters. One such wave was in March 2003.

2003 Crackdown
In March 2003, the Cuban government arrested 75 peaceful dissidents across the island in a
widespread crackdown. Those detained included journalists, human rights defenders,
members of unauthorized (and thus illegal) political groups and labor unions, and other
activists drawn from all fourteen of Cuba’s provinces.101 All 75 were tried and convicted in
summary hearings. None were acquitted. They were sentenced to six to twenty-eight years in
prison, with an average sentence of 19 years.102
The raids took place in the context of rising tension between the United States and Cuba,
and a bold public campaign by citizens within Cuba challenging their system of government.
In 1996, the US Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, an act to “plan for support of
transition” of the Cuban government, which further tightened the decades-long embargo on
Cuba. Cuba responded in 1999 by passing the Law for the Protection of Cuban National
Independence and the Economy (the National Protection Law), which punishes any act that
“supports, facilitates, or collaborates with the objective of the Helms-Burton Act, the
blockade and the economic war against our people.”103
100

Americas Watch (now Human Rights Watch/Americas), Cuba: Attacks Against Independent Associations March 1990February 1991 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1991), http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/1991/02/25/cuba; Human Rights
Watch, Cuba’s Repressive Machinery: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999),
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/1999/06/01/cubas-repressive-machinery; Human Rights Watch, Families Torn Apart: The
High Cost of US and Cuban Travel Restrictions, vol. 17, no. 5 (B), October 2005,
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/10/18/families-torn-apart.
101

“Cuba: One Year After the Crackdown,” Human Rights Watch news release, March 17, 2004,
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2004/03/17/cuba-one-year-after-crackdown.
102

For a complete list of sentencing documents, see Rule of Law in Cuba, “Sentencing Documents,”
http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents.cfm (accessed October 16, 2009).

103

The National Protection Law, art. 1.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

The administration of George W. Bush hardened its policy toward Cuba in the aftermath of
the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. In a May 2002 lecture, then US Under
Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton said that the
United States believed Cuba had “at least a limited offensive biological warfare researchand-development effort” and had provided the technology to “rogue states.”104 These
comments carried significant weight in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, when US national
security strategy embraced the use of preemptive force to protect the United States against
imminent threats105—a justification used in the invasion of Iraq.106 And in September 2002,
newly-appointed chief of the US Interests Section,107 James Cason, arrived in Havana,
adopting a more aggressive stance toward the Cuban government. Cason organized
workshops and meetings for dissidents at the Interests Section, traveled across the island
meeting with critics of the government (often distributing free books and shortwave radios),
and offered more outspoken criticism of Cuba’s human rights record than his
predecessors.108
Meanwhile, within Cuba, a broad-based campaign fostered the public expression of dissent
toward the Castro government. Founded in 1998 by political activist Oswaldo Payá, the
Varela Project aimed to promote reflection on the political system and collect signatures
from Cuban citizens calling for democratic reform, respect for human rights, freedom for all
political prisoners, and private enterprise, among other reforms.109 The project made use of
an article in the Cuban constitution which states that if more than 10,000 voters support a
104

The Honorable John R. Bolton, “Beyond the Axis of Evil: Additional Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction,” lecture at
The Heritage Foundation, May 6, 2002, http://www.heritage.org/research/publicdiplomacy/hl743.cfm (accessed August 3,
2009). A later assessment by the Bush Admin in September 2004 concluded that “it is no longer clear that Cuba has an active,
offensive bio-weapons program.” Steven R. Weisman, “In Stricter Study, US Scales Back Claim on Cuba Arms,” The New York
Times, September 18, 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/18/international/americas/18intel.html?_r=2 (accessed
August 3, 2009).
105

“Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have
in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today’s threats, and the magnitude of potential harm
that could be caused by our adversaries’ choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first.”
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2002/ (accessed September 2, 2009). For further analysis of the 2002 US national security
strategy,: Memorandum from Ivo H. Daalder, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, “Policy Implications of the Bush
Doctrine on Preemption,” to Members of the CFR/ASIL Roundtable on Old Rules/New Threats, November 16, 2002,
http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=5251 (accessed August 14, 2009).

106

Government of the United States, Statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN Security Council on the US Case
Against Iraq, February 6, 2003, transcript by CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript/ (accessed
March 3, 2009).
107

The US Interests Section is the highest US office in Cuba. The United States does not have an embassy in Cuba. Cuba also
maintains a Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C.

108

Daniel P. Erikson, The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States, and the Next Revolution (New York: Bloomsbury Press,
2008), pp. 41-43.

109

Oswaldo Payá, Proyecto Varela (Varela Project), http://www.oswaldopaya.org/es/proyecto-varela/ (accessed June 22,
2009).

New Castro, Same Cuba

42

proposition, it should be put to a referendum.110 The organizers submitted more than 11,000
signatures to the National Assembly in May 2002. The Cuban government responded by
organizing a national referendum of its own in June 2002, which declared the state’s
socialist system “irrevocable,”111 allegedly with 99 percent of Cubans in favor.112 Although the
referendum called for by the Varela Project was not held, its organizers continued to hold
meetings and gather signatures.
In the massive crackdown of 2003, nearly all of the 75 individuals arrested had participated
in the Varela Project. In a press conference following their trials, Cuban Foreign Minister
Felipe Pérez Roque said:
The Varela Project is part of a strategy of subversion against Cuba that has
been conceived, financed, and directed from abroad with the active
participation of the US Interests Section in Havana. It is part of the same
subversive design and has no basis whatsoever in Cuban law. It is a crude
manipulation of Cuba’s laws and constitution.113
Of the 75 people arrested, 35 were charged under the National Protection Law, marking the
first time it had been used to punish dissent. The rest of the 75 were charged with violating
article 91 of the Criminal Code, which broadly punishes any act against the independence or
territorial integrity of the state.114
Cuban authorities justified the imprisonment of the 75 by claiming that they acted as
“mercenaries” in the pay of the US government. In an April 9, 2003 press conference
following the summary trials of the 75, Pérez Roque said the arrests had been precipitated by
the aggressive US policy aimed at toppling the Castro government. He accused the
individuals of receiving funds and materials from the US government; having contact with

110

Cuban constitution, art. 88(g).

111

According to the constitution, the referendum “expressly set forth the irrevocable character of socialism and of the
revolutionary political and social system set out by [the constitution]” (“dejar expresamente consignado el carácter
irrevocable del socialismo y del sistema político y social revolucionario por ella diseñado”). Cuban constitution, Note.
112

Daniel Schweimler, “Cuba votes to entrench socialism,” BBC News, June 19, 2002,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2053060.stm (accessed February 28, 2009).
113

Felipe Pérez Roque, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cuba, “Press Conference on the mercenaries at the service of the
empire who stood trial on April 3,4,5 and 7, 2003,” Havana, April 9, 2003,
http://www.granma.cu/documento/ingles03/012.html and
http://www.cubaminrex.cu/Archivo/Canciller/2003/FPR_conferencia%20sobre%20mercenarios%20090403.htm (accessed
February 28, 2009).
114

Criminal Code, art. 91.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

organizations and individuals actively opposed to the Cuban government, in particular the
US Interests Section and Cuban exile groups in the United States; and producing “distorted”
information that supported the US embargo.115
As evidence of such “mercenary” activities, Pérez Roque pointed to funding that the Cubans
had received from organizations funded by the US Agency for International Development
(USAID), Cuban exile groups, or other foreign sources such as news organizations. For
example, Pérez Roque cited the fact that journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe had received
US$7,154 from CubaNet—a website that received funding from USAID—as evidence of his
working for the US government.116 Chepe’s sentencing documents accused him of writing
articles and providing “distorted and falsified” information about the Cuban government to
“subversive and counterrevolutionary magazines.”117 Similarly, Pérez Roque accused Alfonso
Valdés, president of the unofficial Liberal Democratic Party, of receiving US$400 from Cuban
Democratic Action, a Miami-based organization that also received USAID funding. Pérez
Roque also noted other evidence of “mercenary” activities, such as Oscar Elías Biscet and
Héctor Palacios Ruiz possessing open access passes to the US Interests Section in Havana.
Cuba has the right to protect national security by regulating and setting restrictions on
certain civil society activity, including regulating funding. Yet in order to comply with
protections under international law, any regulation must be proportionate, necessary for
democratic society, and must pursue a legitimate aim. Cuba’s punishment of the dissidents’
non-violent activities did not fall within these parameters. The crackdown contravened their
rights to opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association, and political
participation. It also flouted the principles set out in the 1998 UN Declaration on Human
Rights Defenders that “everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to
solicit, receive and utilize resources for the express purpose of promoting and protecting
human rights and fundamental freedoms through peaceful means.”118 While the Cuban
government claimed dissidents acted as agents of the United States, the evidence provided
by Pérez Roque and reported in trial documents do not substantiate the allegation.
115

Felipe Pérez Roque , Press Conference, para. 1.

116

USAID, “USAID Grants to Promote Transition in Cuba – 2003 Report,” http://www.usaid.gov/regions/lac/cu/upd-cub.htm
(link no longer functional, available at http://www.ciponline.org/cuba/humanrights/USfunding.htm#usaid) (accessed March
1, 2009).
117

Sentence 6/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Ciudad de la Habana (People's Provincial Court of Havana), Case No.
11/2003, Judgment, 6 April 2003, http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-havana-6s.cfm.

118

United Nations Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and
Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted December 9, 1998, G.A. res. 53/144, annex,
53 UN GAOR Supp., UN Doc. A/RES/53/144 (1999), http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/A.RES.53.144.En
(accessed June 19, 2009).

New Castro, Same Cuba

44

Several respected international and regional bodies and experts have concurred that the
sentencing of the 75 prisoners was unjust and that they should be released. These include
the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, which found that the Cuban government
had violated their rights to life, liberty, and personal security; equality before the law;
freedom of opinion, expression, and dissemination; a fair trial; assembly and association;
and due process of law, among others.119 The Commission called for the immediate release
of the prisoners and the repeal of the National Protection Law and article 91, as well as
reform of Cuba’s constitution to ensure judicial independence. The UN Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention found that those arrested in the 2003 crackdown were arbitrarily
detained,120 concluding that:
Independently of whether domestic law has or has not been respected, the
Working Group considers that the legislation applied contravened the
provisions of articles 19, 20 and 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, in that it limits the free exercise of the rights of opinion and
expression, not to be harassed for holding opinions, to research and receive
information and opinions, and to disseminate them, without limitation by
national borders, by any means of expression, as well as the right of peaceful
assembly and association and the right to participate directly in the
government of the country.121
In addition, the former UN Commission on Human Rights issued a resolution in 2004
condemning the crackdown, stating:
...the Government of Cuba, like those of all other sovereign States,
irrespective of the current exceptional international circumstances which
have obliged many States to step up security measures, should refrain from
adopting measures which could jeopardize the fundamental rights, the
freedom of expression and the right to due process of its citizens, and in that
regard, deplores the events which occurred [during March and April 2003] in

119

IACHR, Report No. 67/06, October 21, 2006, http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/2006eng/CUBA.12476eng.htm (accessed
April 2, 2009).

120

UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Decision: Nelson Aguiar Ramírez et. al. v. Cuba, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2004/3/Add.1
at 47, 2003, http://humanrights.law.monash.edu.au/wgad/9-2003.html (accessed August 7, 2009).

121

Ibid., para. 25.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Cuba involving verdicts pronounced against certain political dissidents and
journalists.122
The European Union Council also called for the immediate release of the prisoners.123
Fifty-three of the prisoners sentenced in 2003 remain in prison under Raúl Castro, where
they continue to endure cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in Cuba’s prisons (a full
list of the 53 and their sentences can be found in the appendix). Those prisoners who have
been released have been freed on parole (licensia extrapenal), rather than being released
unconditionally, which leaves them vulnerable to being returned to prison to serve out their
sentences at any time.
The 53 come from varied professions and have participated in a range of unofficial civil
society groups throughout Cuba. Cases of dissidents who remain incarcerated include
journalists, such as Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, who directed the unofficial Union of
Independent Cuban Journalists and Writers,124 and Juan Adolfo Fernández Sainz, a journalist
from Havana.125 Both published articles in foreign outlets that documented abuses by the
Cuban government, and since their incarceration have reportedly been subjected to solitary
confinement. They each have participated in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their
imprisonment.126
Human rights defenders also remain in prison for their criticism of the government, including
Havana doctor Marcelo Cano Rodríguez, a member of the unrecognized human rights group,
the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (Comisión Cubana de
Derechos Humanos y Reconciliación Nacional or CCDHRN), who was sentenced to 18 years in
prison under article 91 and the National Protection Law.127 In the case against him,
prosecutors emphasized that Rodríguez visited prisoners and their families on behalf of the
122

UN Commission on Human Rights, “Situation on Human Rights in Cuba,” Resolution 2004/11, E/CN.4/RES/2004/11,
http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/sdpage_e.aspx?b=1&c=47&t=11.

123

”The Council urges the Cuban Government to release unconditionally all political prisoners, including those who were
detained and sentenced in 2003.” European Union Council (EU Council), “EU Council Conclusions on the EU Common Position
on Cuba,” CL09-141EN, June 15, 2009, http://www.eu-un.europa.eu/articles/fr/article_8787_fr.htm (accessed September 17,
2009), para. 4.

124

Sentence 1/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Pinar del Río (People’s Provincial Court of Pinar del Río), Case No. 2/2003,
Judgment, 5 April 2003, http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-pinar-del-rio-1s.cfm.

125

Sentence 7/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Ciudad de la Habana (People’s Provincial Court of Havana), Case No.
12/2003, Judgment, 4 April 2003, http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-havana-7s.cfm.
126

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Oscar Elias Biscet et al. Case 12.476, Report No. 67/06, Inter-Am. C.H.R.,
OEA/Ser.L/V/II.127 Doc. 4 rev. 1 (2007), October 21, 2006, paras. 54 and 67 respectively.
127

Sentence 6/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Ciudad de la Habana (People’s Provincial Court of Havana).

New Castro, Same Cuba

46

CCDHRN and maintained ties with the international organization Doctors without Borders.128
Fidel Suárez Cruz, a farmer and member of the Pro Human Rights Party in Pinar del Río, was
sentenced to 20 years under the National Protection Law.129 As a human rights activist and
manager of a private library, Suárez was outspoken in his criticism of government
authorities.130 In November 2005, Suárez was reportedly transferred to a closed cell
measuring one square meter.131 Dr. Alfredo Pulido López, a dentist from Camagüey who was
stripped of his job in 1998 for participating in an unofficial religious group, was sentenced to
14 years under article 91.132 Pulido was accused of calling international attention to human
rights abuses.133 During his incarceration, his wife said, Pulido has been beaten and forcibly
paraded naked through the prison by guards. His health has deteriorated so significantly
that, at 49 years old, he can hardly walk.134
Cubans who tried to organize alternative labor groups outside of the state-run Workers’
Central of Cuba (CTC) also continue to serve lengthy prison sentences. They include Nelson
Molinet Espino, who led the unofficial Cuban Confederation of Democratic Workers,
sentenced to 20 years under article 91.135 Prior to his arrest, Molinet had been constantly
harassed for his trade union activities, and his 2003 sentence notes that he published
articles about labor abuses in the international press.136 Lester Gonzales Pentón, who was
the Santa Clara delegate for the same labor confederation, was also sentenced to 20 years
in prison.137 Despite being the youngest of the 75 individuals arrested in March 2003,
Pentón’s health severely worsened in prison.138

128

Ibid.

129

Sentence 1/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Pinar del Río (People’s Provincial Court of Pinar del Río).

130

Ibid.

131

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Oscar Elias Biscet et al. Case 12.476, Report No. 67/06, Inter-Am. C.H.R.,
OEA/Ser.L/V/II.127 Doc. 4 rev. 1 (2007), October 21, 2006,,para. 120.
132

Sentence 1/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Camagüey (People’s Provincial Court of Camagüey), Case No. 2/2003,
Judgment, 4 April 2003, http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-camaguey-1s.cfm.

133

Ibid.

134

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rebeca Rodríguez Souto, wife of Pulido, Cuba, February 10, 2009.

135

Sentence 7/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Ciudad de la Habana (People’s Provincial Court of Havana), Case No.
12/2003, Judgment, 4 April 2003, http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-havana-7s.cfm.
136

Ibid.

137

Sentence 3/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Villa Clara (People's Provincial Court of Villa Clara), Case No.
1/2003,Judgment, 7 April 2003 (case 1/2003), as cited in
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR25/017/2003/en/47840d82-d6f9-11dd-b0cc1f0860013475/amr250172003en.html.

138

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Oscar Elias Biscet et al. Case 12.476, Report No. 67/06, Inter-Am. C.H.R.,
OEA/Ser.L/V/II.127 Doc. 4 rev. 1 (2007), October 21, 2006, para. 78.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Members of a diverse range of unauthorized civil society groups critical of the regime were
also arrested in 2003 and remain in prison. They include Efren Fernández Fernández,
secretary of the Christian Liberation Movement and principal leader of Varela Project in
Havana, who was sentenced to 12 years under article 91 of the penal code.139 Brothers Ariel
and Guido Sigler Amaya, founders of the unofficial Independent Alternative Option
Movement in Matanzas (Movimiento Independiente Opción Alternativa), were sentenced to
20 years under the National Protection Law.140 Before their arrests, the Sigler brothers were
harassed, subjected to numerous acts of public repudiation, and threatened for their
nonviolent activities. Having been moved between at least four different prisons and two
military hospitals, at 47 years old Ariel can no longer walk and is confined to a wheelchair.141

Repression under Raúl Castro
Since taking over in July 2006, Raúl Castro’s government has continued to lock up dissidents
using many of the same laws employed during Fidel Castro’s rule. These include laws
criminalizing contempt, association, disobedience, resistance, and attacks on public
officials. The Raúl Castro government has also increasingly relied on a “dangerousness”
provision to imprison individuals who have not committed any crime. This provision has
been applied both to dissenters and to ordinary Cubans who are unemployed or illegally
self-employed.

Applying the “Dangerousness” Provision
In researching this report, Human Rights Watch documented more than 40 cases of
dissidents sentenced under the “dangerousness” law by Raúl Castro’s government. Scores
more report receiving official warnings that exercising their fundamental rights constitutes a
form of “dangerous” behavior.
The cases are spread across Cuba’s 14 provinces and affect individuals from a range of
professions. Some belong to unofficial organizations, such as unions and youth groups,
while others are unaffiliated. They include journalists, members of religious groups, doctors,
students, and human rights defenders. The group includes individuals such as a bicycle taxi-

139

Sentence 8/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Ciudad de la Habana (People’s Provincial Court of Havana), Case No.
16/2003, Judgment, 5 April 2003, http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-havana-8s.cfm.
140

Sentence 9/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Matanzas (People’s Provincial Court of Matanzas), Case No. 7/2003,
Judgment, 5 April 2003, http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-matanzas-9s.cfm.

141

Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Miguel Sigler Amaya, Miami, United States, February 11, 2009; and Juan
Francisco Sigler Amaya, Cuba, February 12 and 20, 2009. Miguel Sigler Amaya and Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya are the
brothers of Ariel Sigler Amaya and Guido Sigler Amaya.

New Castro, Same Cuba

48

driver who attempted to organize his fellow bicitaxistas into an independent union; a
journalist who created an independent press agency; and a human rights advocate who tried
to walk across Cuba to call attention to abuses and political prisoners.
The indictment of political activist Digzan Saavedra Prat offers insight into the kinds of
activities that the state considers dangerous. A member of an unofficial human rights group
in Banes, Holguín province, Saavedra collected information about abuses and attended
unsanctioned gatherings. His indictment accused him of, among other forms of “antisocial
behavior”:
being tied to persons of bad moral and social conduct, thinking he is
handsome, ...demonstrating against the revolutionary process and people
belonging to political organizations that live in his area of residence. He has
been cited in four official warnings and two educational letters... setting a
bad example for the new generation.142
Saavedra said the prosecutor presented no witnesses, “official warnings,” or any other
evidence during his closed, summary trial in January 2008. When Saavedra told his defense
lawyer that his rights were being violated, his lawyer told him that unless he wanted to
receive a harsher sentence, it was better not to speak of rights in court. Saavedra was
sentenced to a year of “re-education” and was immediately taken to prison.143
Targeting the Unemployed and Illegally Self-Employed
The Cuban government also applies the “dangerousness” provision to non-dissidents who
are unemployed or illegally self-employed. Under the “dangerousness” provision, those who
“live, like a social parasite, off the work of others” are engaging in a form of “antisocial
behavior,” and may be punished.144 The imprisonment of individuals because they do not
take part in the state-controlled labor system shows that any form of non-cooperation with
the Cuban government may be viewed as dangerous behavior.

142

Nereyas Figueredo Ricardo, fiscal municipal de Banes. “Expediente de índice de peligrosidad no. 1 de 2008, estación de la
Policía Revolucionario Nacional de Banes.” January 17, 2008. Indictment of Digzan Saavedra Prat.

143

Human Rights Watch interview with Digzan Saavedra Prat, Cuba, March 17, 2009.,

144

Criminal Code, art. 73(2).

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Self-employment (cuentapropismo) is strictly regulated by the Cuban government, and
permission to run a private business is granted on a case-by-case basis.145 To operate or
work for a business without government authorization is illegal.
Non-dissidents and dissidents alike told Human Rights Watch that it was difficult to survive
on wages from a full-time official job and government rations. The workers we spoke with
said that monthly wages ranged from 250 to 400 Cuban pesos, or US$9.50 to $15.20. Enyor
Díaz Allen said a month’s wages were not enough to buy a pair of shoes. Rafael Meneses
Cuco said he could not afford a toothbrush. “Gerardo Domínguez” said that without finding
a second form of income, he and his retired mother would not have enough to eat.146
In 2008, natural and man-made disasters deepened the economic hardship experienced by
most Cubans. A series of three devastating hurricanes struck the island, causing
approximately US$10 billion worth of damage, and the global financial crisis dramatically
slowed Cuba’s economic growth.147 In response, the Cuban government introduced a set of
austerity measures in 2009, such as a 50 percent reduction in lunch portions at workplaces,
which affected all Cubans.148 Meanwhile, sanctions from the decades-long US embargo
continue to hurt all sectors of the Cuban population.
In the face of such economic hardship, some Cubans said they had chosen to work in
unofficial businesses because, in spite of the risk, they were able to earn better wages.
Others said they chose not to take government jobs because they were not interested in the
work they were offered, which was often in construction or agricultural labor. Human rights
defenders and journalists in Havana, Sancti Spíritus, Holguín, Santiago, and Guantanamo
said that Cubans who were unemployed or illegally self-employed were routinely prosecuted
for “dangerousness.”
“Gerardo Domínguez,” a 28-year-old in Havana who does not belong to any unofficial
political groups or movement, told Human Rights Watch that more than ten of his friends
145

Joint Resolution No. 1 of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and the Ministry of Finances and Prices, which led to the
development of Legislative Decree No. 141, dated Sept. 8, 1993 and passed in June 1996. As cited in Jesús R. Mercader Uguina,
Reality of Labor in Cuba and the Social Responsibility of Foreign Investors (Valencia: Tirant Lo Blanch, 2006), p. 106.
146

Human Rights Watch interview with “Gerardo Domínguez,” Cuba, July 2009. Domínguez’ name has been changed for his
protection.

147

“Cuba’s economy: Ill winds,” The Economist, December 30, 2008,
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12851246 (accessed September 17, 2009); BBC
Caribbean News in Brief, “2008 Cuba’s worst hurricane season,” BBC News, November 14, 2008,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/caribbean/news/story/2008/11/081114_newsbriefspm.shtml (accessed September 17, 2009).
148

Marc Frank, “Cubans face hardship under new austerity measures,” Reuters, June 1, 2009,
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0140188020090601 (accessed July 17, 2009).

New Castro, Same Cuba

50

had been warned or imprisoned for not working, or for operating unauthorized side
businesses. One of his friends was caught selling car parts without official permission in
2008, and was charged with “dangerousness.” 149 “Michel Labrada,” another Havana
resident, said police went door to door in his neighborhood in June 2009, creating a list by
household of who was employed and who was not. The unemployed were given a short-term
work assignment, and told that they would receive a warning for “antisocial behavior” if they
did not report to work.150 According to human rights defender Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito,
“Luis Acosta,” a resident of Sancti Spíritus who could not work because of spinal injuries,
chronic asthma, and other ailments, was sentenced to two years for “dangerousness” for
being unemployed. Acosta said that his ailments and the fact he received disability support
from the government were not taken into account during his closed, summary trial.151 Gabriel
Díaz Sánchez, a human rights defender, described an identical effort in Bayamó, Granma
province, at the beginning of 2009. He said that while the government was carrying out a
household census, officials also asked who was unemployed, and assigned them new jobs.
Those who did not report to their new jobs, Díaz said, were brought before the courts and
charged with “dangerousness.”152
The government launched a campaign targeting the unemployed in eastern Cuba in 2009
called Operation Victory (Operación Victoria). According to several human rights defenders
in Guantanamo province, the campaign consisted of issuing official warnings to the
unemployed, especially young people, and subjecting them to police surveillance. Those
who did not find a job within a few weeks of their warnings were sentenced for
“dangerousness.”153 Beginning in January 2009, news of the operation was broadcast on
official state TV and radio stations and disseminated during meetings of the “committees for
the defense of the revolution” (comités de defensa de la revolución, or CDRs),154 according to
five sources in the region.

149

Human Rights Watch interview with “Gerardo Domínguez,” Cuba, July 2009.

150

Human Rights Watch interview with “Michel Labrada,” Cuba, June 2009. Labrada asked that his name be changed for his
protection.

151

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, Cuba, June 8, 2009. “Luis Acosta’s” name has
been changed for his protection.
152

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Gabriel Díaz Sánchez, Cuba, February 25, 2009.

153

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Enyor Díaz Allen, Cuba, March 14, 2009.

154

The Cuban government created “committees for the defense of the revolution” (comités de defensa de la revolución) in
1960, according to Fidel Castro, to “serve in defense of the Revolution”; to assist in “the shaping of a political and
revolutionary conscience in the broad masses”; and “in the constant mobilization of the masses,” among other functions.
“Discurso Pronunicado por Fidel Castro Ruz, Presidente de la República de Cuba, en el Acto Central Nacional por el Vigesimo
Aniversario de la Constitución de los Comités de Defensa de la Revolución,” September 27, 1980,
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1980/esp/f270980e.html (accessed September 20, 2009).

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Approximately 80 people, most of them youths, were given official warnings in Guantanamo
for being unemployed on January 12, 2009, according to journalist Luís Felipe Rojas, who
reported on the operation. Rojas was only able to publish his articles about the operation—
like all of his work containing criticism of the actions of the Cuban government—on websites
based outside of Cuba, especially CubaEncuentro. According to Rojas, those who received
warnings were told that they had 15 days to find work before facing charges in court.155 Rojas
told Human Rights Watch that 35 of the 80 were charged in February 2009 with
“dangerousness,” and given sentences ranging from a year of forced labor to four years in
jail. He said Operation Victory “had as its objective to grab people who do not work, but they
ended up grabbing people who were self-employed in order to survive, reselling objects,
doing manual labor, filling tires, mobile vendors, and so forth.”156
In addition to punishing those who are unemployed, the government has also launched a
propaganda campaign to cast people without jobs as social parasites, and to stoke
collective resentment against those who operate unauthorized businesses.
In March 2009, a young man referred to as “Gustavo” in an article in Granma, the official
government newspaper, was tried for “dangerousness” before an audience of onlookers in a
public park in Las Tunas. According to the article, the event was “called to elevate the
judicial culture and the conscience of the population.”157 Gustavo was charged with
operating an illegal currency exchange158 and, the article reported, the disdain of the
community was displayed in the “facial expressions which mix worry with rejection of

To this day, CDRs continue to exist on virtually every block in every neighborhood, where their primary responsibility is to
monitor “counterrevolutionary” activity and defend the state against all threats. CDRs play a central role in suppressing
dissent through carrying out surveillance, reporting on fellow citizens, organizing acts of repudiation, and harassing critics of
the government, among other forms of collaboration with the Cuba’s repressive security forces. By the end of the 1990s, CDRs
counted roughly 7.5 million Cuban citizens on their membership roles, roughly three-fourths of the population. Domínguez,
“Government and Politics,” pp. 257-259.
155

Luis Felipe Rojas, “El Ministerio del Interior amenaza a 80 jóvenes desempleados en Guantánamo,” CubaEncuentro,
January 21, 2009, http://www.cubaencuentro.com/es/cuba/noticias/el-ministerio-del-interior-amenaza-a-80-jovenesdesempleados-en-guantanamo-149514 (accessed June 3, 2009).

156

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Luis Felipe Rojas, Cuba, May 5, 2009.

157

Pastor Batista Valdés, “Justicia y enseñanza, enhorabuena,” Diario Granma, March 13, 2009,
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2009/03/13/nacional/artic04.html (accessed April 29, 2009).
158

Roger Cohen, “The End of the End of the Revolution,” The New York Times, December 5, 2008,
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/magazine/07cuba-t.html?sq=Cuba%20CUC&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all
(accessed April 7, 2009).
Cuba has two currencies, the convertible peso (CUC) and the peso, known as moneda nacional. Foreign tourists in Cuba use
the CUC, while Cubans are paid in pesos. As of October 2009, one CUC was valued at approximately 28 pesos. Some products
in Cuba are available only in CUCs, which some Cubans have attacked as a form of economic apartheid. Carol J. Williams,
“Cuba’s two-currency system adds up to a social divide,” The Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2008,
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/08/world/fg-peso8 (accessed April 7, 2009).

New Castro, Same Cuba

52

improper attitudes when it is youths who are the ‘sad protagonists’ of such distortions.”159
The article closed with a call for self-reflection and a change in behavior by the public:
Hopefully the discomfort reflected in [Gustavo’s] expression is
embarrassment, repentance, gratitude for the skilful defense by the lawyer....
Hopefully the repercussions of this and other cases evaluated for their
degree of dangerousness will lead all of us (“crooked and straight,” family
and community, institutions and society) to determine to be more preventive
and inflexible when confronted with such wrongs and to do a better job in
what each of us is supposed to do.
People we spoke with in other provinces said “dangerousness” trials like Gustavo’s were
broadcast on state television to provide warnings to the public.
The Catch-22: Unemployed Dissidents and “Dangerousness”
Under Raúl Castro’s government, dissidents are routinely denied work due to their political
opinions. Because anyone who is unemployed may be accused of “living off of the work of
others” and thus guilty of “antisocial behavior,” the “dangerousness” provision provides a
tailor-made system for punishing dissent. Dissidents cannot get jobs because they are
considered dangerous, and they are considered dangerous because they do not have jobs.
As Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, a human rights defender in Sancti Spíritus and sister of a
journalist sentenced for “dangerousness,” explained the catch-22: “My brother worked for
the government and they let him go for not being trustworthy, for being a human rights
defender. No one would employ him and then, when they charged him, they prosecuted him
because they said he was not working.”160 Her brother Raymundo Perdigón Brito was
sentenced to four years in prison for “dangerousness” in December 2006.
Alexander Santos Hernández, a member of the unofficial Cuban Liberal Movement in Holguín,
was fired in 2005 from his job as a martial arts instructor. When he went to the State
employment center to seek a new job, he said, a government official told him, “worms don’t
deserve employment.” After months of unsuccessfully applying for jobs, he was sentenced

159

Batista Valdés, “Justicia y enseñanza, enhorabuena.”

160

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, Cuba, June 8, 2009.

53

Human Rights Watch | November 2009

to four years for “dangerousness” in 2006. The primary argument of the state prosecutor in
his trial, Santos said, was that he was unemployed.161
Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco, a political activist who gathered signatures for the Varela
Project, was granted parole in February 2008 after completing three-and-a-half years of a
four year sentence for “dangerousness.” But according to his wife, once released, he could
not find a job. One employer after another told him he was not “suitable” or “trustworthy,”
or that they did not hire “counterrevolutionaries.” His conditional freedom was revoked in
August 2008 on the grounds that he was unemployed, and he was sent back to prison,
where he served out the rest of his sentence until May 2009. “In court, the judge told us that
he couldn’t find work,” said his wife. “But the thing is that they won’t employ him.”162
As noted at the start of this report, Ramón Velásquez Toranzo was sentenced to three years’
imprisonment for “dangerousness” in January 2007 for attempting to march across Cuba to
call attention to human rights. According to his daughter, the primary argument presented by
the state prosecutor in his trial was that he was unemployed. The government said it had
sent three official warnings to Velásquez’s home in the weeks preceding his arrest,
informing him that his joblessness constituted “antisocial behavior.” But he had not been
home to receive the warnings because he was on his march.163

Other Forms of Criminalizing Dissent
In addition to the “dangerousness” law, Raúl Castro’s government has employed many of
the same laws criminalizing dissent as were used during Fidel Castro’s rule. Relevant cases
include those of Rigoberto Zamora Rodríguez and Yoandri Gutiérrez Vargas, each sentenced
to two years in prison for acting in contempt of the head of state (desacato al jefe de estado)
for chanting anti-government slogans in public in Bayamo, Granma province, in January
2008.164 The prosecutor’s indictment, a copy of which was obtained by Human Rights Watch,
said that two ex-members of “counterrevolutionary groups” had “demonstrated against our
revolutionary process” in the street. Zamora and Gutiérrez, it went on, had encouraged
people:

161

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernández, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

162

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Lazara Bárbara Sendiña Recarde, Cuba, March 6, 2009.

163

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rufina Velásquez González, Miami, United States, April 28, 2009.

164

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Gabriel Díaz Sánchez, Cuba, February 25, 2009.

New Castro, Same Cuba

54

not to take part in the unified vote that strengthens our political and social
system, and used offensive phrases directed against the character of our
Commander in Chief, among which were “this old man is killing us with
hunger,” “down with Fidel,” “down with the old,” “down with
communism”....165
The indictment also noted that Zamora was unemployed, “does not perform socially useful
activity,” and “associates with counterrevolutionary persons”; and that Gutiérrez, in
addition to being unemployed and linked to counterrevolutionaries, “does not belong to any
organization of the masses.”166
Enyor Díaz Allen, member of the unauthorized political group Youth for Democracy (Jóvenes
por la Democracia) in Guantanamo, was sentenced to a year in prison for contempt
(desacato) in March 2009 when he participated in a small protest criticizing the government
and demanding respect for human rights.167 Authorities had detained Díaz three times before
his arrest for participating in peaceful activities and had warned him that he would be
imprisoned if he did not change his behavior. Pro-democracy activist Maikel Bencomo Rojas
said he was repeatedly harassed by security officials because he had a tattoo on his back
that read “Down with Fidel.” He was arrested on his way to an unauthorized meeting in
Havana and was sentenced to two years of imprisonment in February 2008. He was charged
with carrying out an attack on authority (atentado) and contempt.168 In another case,
Alejandro Jiménez Blanco was charged with resisting authority (resistencia) for having yelled
anti-government and pro-democracy slogans in a public park in Guantanamo in March 2009;
he was sentenced to two years in prison.169

165

Rigoberto Zamora Rodríguez and Yoandri Gutiérrez Vargas Case, Al Tribunal Municipal Popular de Bayamo, Oswaldo Rivero
Almarales, fiscal. Bayamo, Indictment of Rigoberto Zamora Rodríguez and Yoandri Gutiérrez Vargas, February 28, 2008

166

Ibid.

167

Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Ramona Sánchez Ramírez, Cuba, March 13 and 14, 2009.

168

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Carlos González Leiva, Cuba, March 13, 2009.

169

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Elizardo Sánchez, Cuba, March 19, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

VI. Due Process Violations
Cuba systematically violates the due process rights of dissenters from the moment they are
arrested through their sham trials. Prior to their trials, political detainees170 are routinely
denied access to legal counsel and family visits, often meeting their attorneys just minutes
before their hearings. Political detainees are also routinely held in inhumane and dangerous
conditions, and are subjected to abusive interrogations. Neither detainees nor their families
are adequately informed about the charges against them, and detainees may languish for
months or years in prison without ever being formally tried for a crime. This system of due
process violations, entrenched during the rule of Fidel Castro, remains active under Raúl
Castro.
Nearly all trials of political detainees are closed hearings lasting less than an hour. During
trials, judges and prosecutors impede dissidents’ right to a fair trial by arbitrary actions such
as falsifying evidence and denying defendants the right to speak in their defense. Political
prisoners who are granted parole may have their conditional freedom revoked any time they
are deemed to have engaged in “counterrevolutionary” activities. Human Rights Watch was
unable to document a single case under the Raúl Castro government where a court acquitted
a political detainee.

Failure to Provide Information to Detainees and Families
Cuban law dictates that, upon arresting someone, authorities are immediately supposed
produce a written act documenting the time, date, and motive for the arrest, signed by the
relevant officer and the detainee.171 The law also stipulates that police should inform the
detainee’s family of the arrest and facilitate contact between the detainee and his or her
family.172 Prosecutorial investigators (instructores) are required to inform detainees of why
they are being detained and the charges against them.173
Yet from the time of their arrest through pre-trial detention period, dissidents say,
authorities fail to inform them of the reason for their confinement. When political activist
William Reyes Mir was arrested and taken to a police station in September 2007, he asked
170

Throughout this chapter, the term political detainee will be used to refer to individuals who have been arrested for
exercising fundamental rights, such as the right to freedom of expression or assembly.

171

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 247.

172

Ibid.

173

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 162.

New Castro, Same Cuba

56

several times why he had been detained, but officers ignored him. According to Reyes, “They
detained me for five days of punishment without telling me why I was there, nor what they
were going to do to me.”174
Families are routinely kept in the dark regarding the imprisonment of relatives who are
political detainees. In dozens of cases investigated by Human Rights Watch, authorities
prohibited dissidents from contacting family members after their arrest, and failed to notify
families that their relatives had been detained. We documented a half-dozen cases in which
authorities withheld information from inquiring relatives or even deliberately misled them by
providing false information regarding detainees’ whereabouts and legal status.
A member of an unofficial pro-democratic political party, “Jorge Barrera Alonso” was
detained in 2006 while handing out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As
recounted above, when his wife heard from his friend that he had been detained, she went
to various police stations to find out where he was being held. Every station denied having
Barrera in custody and claimed to have no information regarding his arrest. It was not until
several days later, after Barrera’s wife had filed a formal complaint at a government office,
that she received a call from an officer at one of the stations she had visited acknowledging
that they were detaining her husband.175

Restrictions of Family Visits
Even when families determine where a loved one is being held, they are routinely denied the
opportunity to visit him or her before trial, or only allowed to meet for extremely short
periods of time. International law states that authorities should allow detainees to receive
visits from family members while in detention.176 Former detainees and their relatives also

174

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with William Reyes Mir, Cuba, March 31, 2009.

175

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with “Hilda Galán,” the wife of “Jorge Barrera Alonso,” Cuba, February 24, 2009.
The wife of Barrera asked that her name and that of her husband be kept anonymous, out of fear that her husband would be
punished for her testimony. Barrera remains in prison to this day.
176

”A detained or imprisoned person shall have the right to be visited by and to correspond with, in particular, members of
his family…” Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment (Body of
Principles), adopted December 9, 1988, G.A. Res. 43/173, annex, 43 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 298, UN Doc. A/43/49 (1988),
no. 19.
“Prisoners shall be allowed under necessary supervision to communicate with their family and reputable friends at regular
intervals, both by correspondence and by receiving visits.” United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of
Prisoners (Standard Minimum Rules), adopted by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the
Treatment of Offenders, held at Geneva in 1955, and approved by the Economic and Social Council by its resolution 663 C
(XXIV) of July 31, 1957, and 2076 (LXII) of May 13, 1977, art. 37.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

told Human Rights Watch that, when allowed, short visits were openly monitored by guards,
who prohibited any discussion of the detainee’s arrest, trial, or any issue of a political nature.
Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín, who was arrested in July 2006, said he had no contact with his
family in the week between his arrest and his trial. A human rights defender and member of
an unofficial political group, Rodríguez was later charged with “dangerousness.”177
Authorities did not allow Gertrudis Ojeda Suave to receive visits from her mother or daughter
during the eight days between her arrest and the trial in 2002. Also charged with
“dangerousness,” she said the time apart had been especially traumatizing for her threeyear-old daughter.178
Rufina Velásquez González was allowed to visit her father—who had been arrested while
marching peacefully across Cuba to demand respect for human rights—in the days before
his trial in January 2007. But she said when they began to discuss the reason for his arrest,
guards intervened. According to Velásquez, “They cut off our conversation because we were
talking about what constitutes injustice. And then they pulled me by the arm and took me
out. They said, ‘The visit is over. You can’t be talking about these things with your father.’”
When she tried to visit her father days later, she was turned away without explanation.179

Lack of Access to Legal Counsel
The Cuban constitution states that citizens have the right to a defense,180 and the Criminal
Procedural Law grants detainees the right to meet privately with their attorneys.181 Yet in
practice, political detainees are systematically denied the chance to meet confidentially with
defense lawyers during pre-trial detention.
Dozens of former political prisoners and family members of current prisoners told Human
Rights Watch that detainees are not allowed to meet with their lawyers until the day of their
trials, when they are given just a few minutes to introduce themselves. In the rare instances
when political detainees are allowed to meet with their lawyers during pre-trial detention,
the visits are limited to a few minutes and monitored by guards, infringing on defendants’

177

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Luis Rodríguez Desdin, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

178

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Gertrudis Ojeda Suave, Cuba, March 31, 2009.

179

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rufina Velásquez González, daughter of political prisoner Juan Velásquez
Toranzo, Miami, United States, April 28, 2009.

180

Cuban constitution, art. 59.

181

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 249(1).

New Castro, Same Cuba

58

right to confidential meetings with their legal counsel.182 Lawyers’ lack of access to their
clients significantly hinders their ability to prepare an adequate legal defense.
Across Cuba, human rights defenders report a pattern of systematic denial of access to their
legal counsel. When Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín was arrested in July 2006, his wife quickly
contracted a lawyer to defend him. But the lawyer was not allowed to visit Rodríguez before
his trial, he said, and the state prosecutor would not inform the lawyer with what crime he
would be charged. Rodríguez did not meet his lawyer until the day of his trial.183 In the ten
days between when he was arrested and brought to trial in January 2008, political and
human rights activist Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz was not allowed to meet with a lawyer, despite
repeated requests to do so.184
State prosecutors provide additional obstacles by obscuring or withholding information
regarding the charges and evidence against detainees, and by giving minimal notice as to
the timing of pending trials. This obfuscation is permitted by the Criminal Procedural Law,
which allows prosecutors to withhold charges and evidence from the defense in exceptional
circumstances “for reasons of state security.”185 As detailed below, this disparity in
information sets the stage for an imbalanced trial.
Family members of political detainees often have a difficult time finding lawyers to take on
their cases, either because of the risk lawyers perceive in defending persons branded as
“counterrevolutionaries,” or because lawyers see the outcome of such cases as
predetermined and thus not worth contesting.
Human Rights Watch documented three cases in which state officials reportedly advised
defense lawyers not to take on cases of dissidents. The lawyer defending Nelson Curbelo
Rodríguez, a member of an unofficial political group, was warned by a state prosecutor
before the trial not to take Curbelo’s case, according to a human rights defender who spoke

182

UN Standard Minimum Rules; Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, adopted December 14, 1990, G.A. Res. 45/111,
annex, 45 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 49A) at 200, UN Doc. A/45/49 (1990); UN Body of Principles, articles 10-26, 91.Standard
Minimum Rules, art. 93.

183

Rodríguez’s wife was also not allowed to visit him. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Luis
Rodríguez Desdin, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

184

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, March 19, 2009.

185

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 247.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

with the lawyer. “Do you know who you are going to defend?" a prosecutor reportedly asked
Curbelo's lawyer. "This guy is a dissident. Be careful of getting involved with dissidents.”186
Miriam Leiva—the wife of journalist Óscar Espinosa Chepe, who was detained in 2003—told
Human Rights Watch:
I talked to a lawyer who refused to represent Oscar because he knew that all
the sentences had already been decided and said he was not going to waste
his time performing an act of theater.... Two defense lawyers [were] talking
nearby. I heard them say, “Can you imagine? They made me defend this guy,
a dissident. Why would I get myself into trouble for that?”187

Forced Interrogations
Political detainees also are subjected to forced interrogations by state security officers. This
practice directly violates Cuban law, which explicitly states: “Neither violence nor coercion of
any sort will be used to force people to testify.”188
Former political detainees held at many different detention facilities told Human Rights
Watch that interrogation sessions were aimed at eliciting confessions and collecting
information about dissident activities. They said that security officers repeatedly threatened
them with harsher sentences if they did not confess and used tactics including sleep
deprivation, solitary confinement, abrupt changes in temperature, and incessant bright
lights and loud music.
Raymundo Perdigón Brito—a journalist who was arrested in Sancti Spíritus in November
2006 and charged with “dangerousness”—was held for over a week before his trial.
According to his sister, whom he later told of his experience:
During these days he found himself detained in punishment cells, where
there exist methods to soften prisoners. He left very confused, wasting away
mentally. They used various psychological methods to torment and
intimidate him there. They would wake him up at any hour, they would turn
186

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, March 19, 2009. Pacheco, a human rights
defender and fellow member of the Movimiento Independiente Opción Alternativa with Curbelo, had been in contact with
Curbelo’s lawyer.

187

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Miriam Leiva, Cuba, February 20, 2009.

188

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 166.

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60

on the water at three or four in the morning, they would interrogate him in
total darkness. They accused him falsely, and told him that he would receive
a longer sentence than the one he had.189
Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos—a trade unionist who tried to form an alternative to the official
government union—described similar tactics by authorities during his pre-trial detention in
Havana. For nearly five weeks, he said, he was moved back and forth between a small cell he
shared with prisoners convicted of violent crimes and a solitary confinement cell. Bright
lights in solitary confinement were left on 24 hours a day, and he was subjected to repeated
interrogations:
It was harsh, aggressive, threatening. They told me that they were seeking a
life sentence, a firing squad. They called me a traitor, trying to suggest that
we were actually agents of the [US] empire. It was a grotesque and very
intense thing. They call you to do an interrogation at two in the morning. You
lose track of time when it isn’t mealtime. You live in great psychological
tension.... Always with the threatening attitude: “you are going to rot in
jail.”190

Abusive Pre-Trial Detention Conditions
Political detainees are subjected to abusive detention conditions prior to their trials. Among
other abuses, political detainees are routinely given insufficient and contaminated food and
water; deprived of bedding and the facilities needed to maintain basic hygiene; and denied
medical attention in cases of need. These conditions violate international law.191
International law also requires that untried detainees be kept in separate facilities from

189

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, Raymundo Brito’s sister, Cuba, March 4,
2009.
190

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos, Miami, United States, April 14, 2009.

191

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), adopted December 16, 1966, G.A. Res. 2200 A (XXI), 21 UN
GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, UN Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force March 23, 1976, signed by Cuba on
February 28, 2008, art. 10(1).
“Every individual who has been deprived of his liberty … also has the right to humane treatment during the time he is in
custody.” UN Standard Minimum Rules; Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, adopted December 14, 1990, G.A. Res.
45/111, annex, 45 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 49A) at 200, UN Doc. A/45/49 (1990); UN Body of Principles, articles 10-26, 91.
American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, O.A.S. Res. 30, adopted by the Ninth International Conference of
American States (1948), art. 25; American Convention on Human Rights (“Pact of San José, Costa Rica”), adopted November 22,
1969, O.A.S.Treaty Series No. 36, 1144 U.N.T.S. 123, entered into force July 18, 1978, reprinted in Basic Documents Pertaining
to Human Rights in the Inter-American System, OEA/Ser.LV/11.82 doc. 6 rev .1 at 25 (1992),art. 5.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

convicted prisoners.192 As already noted, Human Rights Watch found that Cuba consistently
violates this provision, forcing political detainees to share overcrowded cells with persons
convicted of violent offenses.
“Juan Alfonso,” a member of an unrecognized pro-democracy group, was detained in
Holguín in October 2008. He said he was taken to a police station and placed in a cell with
two convicted prisoners that was barely large enough to accommodate the three men lying
down. He was not provided with a mattress or a blanket, and spent his nights sleeping on
the exposed cement floor. The only water he had access to dripped from a small tap
protruding from one of the cell walls. He and other prisoners shared a single container to eat,
drink, and wash themselves. In the center of the cell was an uncovered squat toilet, which
filled the small, poorly ventilated space with a nauseating smell. Authorities did not allow
Alfonso to go outside during his four days of pre-trial detention, during which he said he
contracted a staph infection in his genitals from the unhygienic conditions. Neither his
family nor a lawyer was allowed to visit him.193
Manuel Vázquez Portal, an independent journalist who was arrested in the March 2003
crackdown, described his pre-trial detention as follows:
They locked me in a cell that was one-and-a-half meters by two meters with
three other detainees. It is torture to be with three men in a cell meant for
one person, with the light on 24 hours a day. It has a steel door that makes a
terrible noise when it is opened and closed, and they slam the door
constantly to prevent you from sleeping at night or during the day. In the cell
it is very hot and when they transfer you to the interrogation office the
temperature is much lower and it is very cold.... They interrogated me four
times in private offices of the Political Police. From the moment you arrive
they treat you as though you’re guilty.194

Indefinite Detention
Some political detainees may be held for years without ever being charged with a crime,
languishing in a pre-trial investigatory phase that can be extended indefinitely. Cuba’s
192

ICCPR, art. 10(2); UN Standard Minimum Rules, arts. 8-9, 85(1), 86; Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners,
Principle 8.
193

Human Rights Watch interview with “Juan Alfonso,” Holguín, Cuba, June 2009. Alfonso’s name has been changed for his
protection.
194

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Manuel Vázquez Portal, Miami, United States, February 9, 2009.

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Criminal Procedural Law states that the period of investigation to prepare criminal charges
should not exceed 60 days, but may be extended to a “maximum term” of six months.
However, the law leaves a loophole for exceptional cases in which high-ranking officials may
grant further extensions of the investigatory period.195
Human rights defender René Gómez Manzano, a lawyer by trade whose license was not
renewed after he became active in unofficial groups critical of the government, was arrested
on July 22, 2005, shortly after participating in a small, peaceful protest in Havana urging the
European Union to take a tougher stance toward Cuba. Although he was never formally
charged with a crime, Gómez was held for more than a year and a half in prison with
convicted prisoners until he was released on February 8, 2007. Over the course of his
detention, his brother filed three separate acts of habeas corpus on his behalf, all of which
were dismissed.196 At the time of his release, Gómez had never been charged with a crime.197
Vladimir Alejo Miranda, a human rights defender in Havana, was detained in December 2007
after carrying a sign in public demanding the release of political prisoners.198 At the time of
this report, he had yet to be tried for a crime, and was being held with convicted prisoners in
Agüica prison in Matanzas.
Dr. Darsi Ferrer Ramírez, who ran an unofficial medical clinic and human rights center in
Havana, was arbitrarily detained on July 9, 2009—the same day he had planned to hold an
unofficial public gathering in Havana where people could come and “share their common
dreams” for the future of the island, he said.199 He was released at the end of the day after
the planned time had passed, only to be arrested again on July 21 and sent to Valle Grande
prison in Havana. Ferrer has been in prison since his arrest, but at the time of publication,
had yet to stand trial.

195

While article 107 decrees that the initial investigation should not exceed six months, it leaves room for indefinite extension
in exceptional cases, pending approval by authorities. Criminal Procedural Law, art. 107.

196

According to the law, a detainee or any other person on his/her behalf may submit a petition for habeas corpus in cases
where unlawful detention is alleged. Criminal Procedural Law, art. 467.
197

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with René Gómez Manzano, Cuba, May 5, 2009.

198

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Elizardo Sánchez, Cuba, March 19, 2009.

199

Letter from Darsi Ferrer to Coronel Walkiria, Chief of the National Office Civilian Affairs of the Interior Ministry (Oficina
Nacional de Atención a la Ciudadanía del Ministerio del Interior), August 10, 2009,
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/article.asp?artID=22320 (accessed on September 10, 2009).

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Summary Trials
When political detainees are brought to trial, they are almost always tried in summary
proceedings that violate their right to a fair trial. While summary judgments are permitted by
Cuban law, such proceedings are only supposed to be allowed in “exceptional
circumstances.”200 Yet scores of cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch suggest that
summary trials in political cases are the rule, rather than the exception.201 Nearly every
former prisoner and relative of a current political prisoner interviewed for this report alleged
that the trials of dissidents lasted less than an hour, with most taking between 10 and 30
minutes.
Summary trials provide less time to question witnesses, review evidence, and mount a
comprehensive defense.202 They also exacerbate the inequalities produced in the pre-trial
period, when prosecutors enjoy full access to the accused, are informed of the charges, and
can review the evidence, whereas defense attorneys are denied most, if not all, of the same
information.
Alexander Santos Hernández, a political activist in Holguín, described the swiftness of his
arrest and sentencing in July 2006 as follows, “[The police] picked me up at 5:50 am while I
was at home sleeping, and by 8:30 that morning they were already reading me my sentence.
From there to the jail cells of Holguín, and straight to prison.”203
Víctor Yunier Fernández Martínez, who belonged to an unsanctioned political group that
advocated for human rights and democracy, was tried for “dangerousness” in 2006. He said
his trial lasted less than ten minutes. The legal proceedings consisted of the prosecutor
reading his indictment and the judge accepting the recommendation to sentence him to
three years in prison. According to Fernández, the judge did not allow him to speak during

200

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 479.

201

General Comment 32 warns against the abuse of emergency clauses to restrict the right to a fair trial: “States derogating
from normal procedures required under article 14 in circumstances of a public emergency should ensure that such derogations
do not exceed those strictly required by the exigencies of the actual situation. The guarantees of fair trial may never be made
subject to measures of derogation that would circumvent the protection of nonderogable rights.” UN Human Rights Committee,
General Comment No. 32, The Right to Equality before Courts and Tribunals and to a Fair Trial, UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/32 (2007),
para. 6.

202

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 480.

203

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernández, Cuba, March 16, 2009. Santos’s family was
never notified about the trial, and so could not attend. He was sentenced to four years in prison for “dangerousness.”

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64

the proceedings; no witnesses testified against him; and his lawyer, whom he met for the
first time minutes before the trial, made no effort to defend him.204

Closed Trials
Access to the trials of political defendants is highly restricted, violating their right to a public
trial.205 The Criminal Procedural Law grants judges broad authority to close trials at any stage
for reasons of state security, morality, or public order.206 If construed in a sufficiently narrow
fashion, each of these reasons could serve as a legitimate justification for barring the public
from trials in certain circumstances. However, the Cuban judiciary’s widespread and
systematic use of closed trials appears designed to prevent transparency and provide cover
for the contravention of basic due process rights. The law bars everyone related to the
defendant except his lawyer from attending closed trials.207
Even when trials are not officially closed, authorities consistently fail to notify family
members of political detainees about trials, or deliberately mislead relatives about when
and where hearings will be held. In other cases, authorities inform families such a short time
before trials start so as to make it impossible for them to attend. These tactics have the
effect of creating de facto closed trials even when they are not officially mandated by judges.
Independent observers, including human rights defenders and journalists, are consistently
barred from attending hearings.
On August 31, 2008, Niover García Fournier heard from friends that his brother, political
activist Yordis García Fournier, had been detained. Niover went directly to the police station,

204

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Víctor Yunier Fernández Martínez, Cuba, March 11, 2009. Fernández was
arrested in February 2006.

205

“Everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by
law. The press and the public may be excluded from all or part of a trial for reasons of morals, public order or national security
in a democratic society, or when the interest of the private lives of the parties so requires, or to the extent strictly necessary in
the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.” International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), art. 14(1). “Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an
independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against
him.” Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 10.
General Comment No. 32 suggests that the right to a public trials translates into a duty for the courts to “make information
regarding the time and venue of the oral hearings available to the public” and provide space to accommodate them—one the
courts in Cuba consistently do not fulfill. UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 32, The Right to Equality before
Courts and Tribunals and to a Fair Trial, UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/32 (2007), para. 6.
“Every person accused of an offense has the right to be given an impartial and public hearing, and to be tried by courts
previously established in accordance with pre-existing laws, and not to receive cruel, infamous or unusual punishment.” The
American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, art. 26
206

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 305.

207

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 305.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

where police said Yordis would be fined and released the following day, yet offered no
additional details. When Niover returned the next day, police said the state prosecutor had
decided to review Yordis’s case for possible criminal charges. Niover returned to the station
several times, but authorities would not give him any additional information about his
brother’s status. On September 3, 2008, police told Niover the state prosecutor had decided
to try his brother for contempt (desacato). Niover rushed to the prosecutor’s office, where he
was informed that his brother would be put on trial that day. By the time Niover made it to
the court, his brother had already been sentenced to a year in prison in a hearing that took
less than an hour. The state had not notified any of Yordis’s family members of his trial. His
family did not even know the reason he had been arrested.208
Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito said dozens of neighbors, extended family members, human
rights defenders and political activists attempted to observe the trial of her brother,
Raymundo, in December 2006. But security officers would not allow any of them to attend
the trial. Raymundo, a journalist, had been charged with “dangerousness.” He was
sentenced in a closed trial that only his immediate family members were allowed to
attend.209
Cubans from a range of different provinces told Human Rights Watch that authorities often
detain government critics to prevent them from attending the trials of other dissidents.
According to Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba, a human rights defender in Guantanamo:
As opponents [of the government], several of us have been detained on
various occasions so that we couldn’t be present at the trials. At times, they
have told us “you cannot leave your house until 4 o’clock in the afternoon,”
and they put an official or a police officer on the corner or in front of your
house to keep an eye on you.210
Further undermining transparency of the judicial process, Cuban authorities routinely fail to
provide copies of sentences to political prisoners or their families. International law states
that all judgments should be made public, even in closed trials.211
208

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Niover Garcia Fournier, Cuba, March 14, 2009.

209

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, Cuba, March 4, 2009.

210

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba, March 13, 2009.

211

ICCPR, art. 14(1): “…any judgment rendered in a criminal case or in a suit at law shall be made public except where the
interest of juvenile persons otherwise requires or the proceedings concern matrimonial disputes or the guardianship of
children.” UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment 32:“the essential findings, evidence and legal reasoning must be
made public” even in closed trials.

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66

Arbitrary Actions by Prosecutors and Judges
The prosecution of dissidents in closed, summary trials, in a system designed to criminalize
dissent, leaves them vulnerable to rampant abuses during judicial proceedings. Dissidents
interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported grossly arbitrary actions by prosecutors,
judges, and defenders in their cases, which further violated their right to a fair trial.
In six cases investigated by Human Rights Watch, former political prisoners and the families
of current prisoners said that prosecutors fabricated confessions or other pieces of evidence.
One such case was that of William Reyes Mir, a political activist from Holguín, who was
charged with “dangerousness” in September 2007. Reyes said authorities forged his
signature on several official warnings for “antisocial behavior.”212 He said the warnings were
the main evidence used against him in his trial, which lasted less than 15 minutes.
According to Reyes:
I met [my] lawyer the moment I stood in front of the Court. At that moment, he
called me over and asked, “Are these ‘official warnings’ yours? Why did you
sign them?”
I told him, “Let me read them, because I’ve never seen them.”
I took them and read them and said, “These warnings are not mine. They
have never been read to me, nor have I been told to sign a warning that has
these things.”
So I said, “I’ll sign my name, even with my eyes closed it comes out the same,
because I sign in only one way.”
Then I did it, I showed him that [the signature on the warnings] was not my
signature. He even saw my ID and saw my real signature and saw that truly
the other was not mine.... There in court you cannot get upset, you cannot
argue. You must be quiet because the more you defend yourself and the
more you complain, the worse the trial comes out.213

212

“Official warnings” (advertencias oficiales) are written citations used to warn individuals that they are participating in
dangerous activities and advise them to abstain from doing so in the future. They are supposed to be presented to the
recipient and signed to acknowledge culpability. When signed, they function as a virtual confession that one has partaken in
the activity noted in the warning, and are therefore a very damning piece of evidence. See “Dangerousness” in “The Legal
Foundation of Repression in Cuba” above.
213

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with William Reyes Mir, Cuba, March 31, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Reyes was sentenced to two years of forced labor for “dangerousness.”
Former political prisoners routinely said judges would not allow their lawyers to present
evidence in support of their innocence.214 When Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz—a political and
human rights activist from Matanzas—was charged with “dangerousness” in January 2008,
his wife collected over 20 letters from neighbors declaring that he was an upstanding
community member. Pacheco said the letters disproved the prosecutor’s allegation that he
was a drunk who posed a threat to his neighbors. But the judge refused to even admit the
letters, Pacheco said. He was sentenced to three years in prison for “dangerousness.”215
In four cases, dissidents told Human Rights Watch that judges forbade them from speaking
at any point during their trials. What’s more, former prisoners and family members of current
prisoners routinely said state-appointed defenders failed to provide an adequate legal
defense. Víctor Yunier Fernández Martinez said his lawyer made no attempts to counter the
prosecutor’s arguments during his 2006 trial for “dangerousness.” As noted above,
journalist Ramon Velásquez Toranzo’s defense lawyer offered a vigorous defense at the
beginning of his hearing for “dangerousness.” But after being called into the judge’s
quarters during a recess the lawyer stayed quiet for the rest of the trial.216
Almost a dozen former prisoners said their lawyers explicitly warned them not to challenge
the charges against them and to forsake their right to appeal to avoid longer sentences. For
example, Rafael Meneses Cuco—a farmer who publicly criticized elections and was
sentenced for “dangerousness” in January 2008—said his state-appointed lawyer warned
him that if he appealed he would receive a harsher sentence. As a result, he said he decided
not to appeal his sentence of two years’ forced labor on a sugar plantation.

Parole and the Threat of Retraction
The Cuban Criminal Code gives judges the power to grant parole (licencia extrapenal) in
cases when “it is deemed necessary,”217 and states that parole can be revoked if the

214

Defendants have the right “to examine, or have examined, the witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and
examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him.” ICCPR, art. 14(3)e.
215

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, February 23, 2009.

216

Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Rufina Velásquez González, Miami, United States, April 28 and May 14,
2009.

217

Criminal Code, art. 31 (2).

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68

prisoner does not engage in “good conduct.”218 Both provisions are vague, leaving judges
and other officials a great deal of discretion and few safeguards to prevent dissidents being
denied parole for political reasons or having it revoked once it has been granted.
Determinations about parole and decisions to revoke it should follow due process standards,
as they determine whether someone shall continue to be deprived of his or her liberty.
Released political prisoners repeatedly told Human Rights Watch that when parole was
granted, authorities warned them that any exercise of dissent would result in their being
returned to prison. Such warnings, dissidents said, were intended to dissuade them from
engaging in work that could be seen as critical of the government.
Journalist Óscar Espinosa Chepe was released on medical grounds on November 29, 2004,
after having been arrested in the 2003 crackdown. He told Human Rights Watch that his
release document reads: “Parole for the term that is deemed necessary or until he recovers
his health.” Chepe, who continues to live in Havana, has returned to his work as a journalist,
publishing articles critical of the government in foreign outlets. As a result, he said he has
received several warnings from government officials threatening to rescind his parole,
including a telephone call in 2006 from the judge who had granted the parole. The judge
told Chepe that his freedom “could be revoked at any moment,” if the judge chose. 219
The case of dissident Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco, recounted above, shows how swiftly
authorities can revoke parole for those who voice dissent. Prieto had completed three years
and five months of a four-year sentence when he was granted conditional release in February
2008. Upon release, he resumed his participation in unofficial political groups, which had
led to his being charged with “dangerousness” in 2004. He was arrested again in August
2008 and returned to prison. When authorities arrested Prieto, they said he was being
returned to prison for engaging in “counterrevolutionary activities.”220
In February 2008, the Cuban government released four political prisoners—Pedro Pablo
Álvarez Ramos, Omar Pernet Hernández, José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, and Alejandro
González Raga—on the condition that they accept forced exile to Spain. The prisoners, all of
whom were arrested in the 2003 crackdown, were forced to choose between freedom in

218

In cases of “dangerousness,” the courts have the power to change the nature or duration of “re-education” on the
recommendation of the authorities responsible for carrying it out. Criminal Code, arts. 31 (4) and 83.

219

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Óscar Espinosa Chepe, Cuba, February 5, 2009.

220

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Lázara Bárbara Sendiña Recarde, Cuba, March 6, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Spain and continued imprisonment in Cuba. Authorities explicitly told them they would not
be able to return to Cuba once they had gone to Spain, said Álvarez.221

221

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos, Miami, United States, April 14, 2009.

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VII. Inhumane Prisons
Cuba fails to meet basic international standards regarding the treatment of prisoners.
Conditions are abysmal for common and political prisoners alike, with overcrowded cells,
unhygienic and insufficient food and water, and inadequate medical treatment.
Under international human rights law, prisoners retain their human rights and fundamental
freedoms, except for restrictions on rights that are required by incarceration, and the
conditions of detention should not aggravate the suffering inherent in imprisonment.222 But
in Cuba, prisoners who attempt to exercise their rights are severely reprimanded. Political
prisoners who criticize the government, document abuses, report violations, or engage in
any activity deemed “counterrevolutionary” suffer consequences that are harmful to their
physical and psychological health.
Political prisoners who speak out are routinely subjected to extended periods of solitary
confinement, harassment, and beatings. They are denied access to medical treatment in
spite of chronic health problems rooted in, and exacerbated by, abysmal prison conditions.
Family visits and other forms of communication are arbitrarily refused. Human Rights Watch
documented three cases in which political prisoners were deliberately moved to close
quarters with prisoners infected with tuberculosis, despite the fact that they themselves
were not infected. Compounding these widespread and systematic abuses is the fact that
prisoners have no effective complaint mechanism through which to seek redress, creating
an environment of total impunity.
Cuba ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment on May 17, 1995, which states that no circumstances may be used
to justify the use of torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and requires member
states to take steps to prevent it. The convention obligates states to take measures to allow
for complaints in cases of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment, and to
hold accountable those who carry out such acts.223
222

UN Standard Minimum Rules, paras. 57-58; United Nations Human Rights Committee, General Comment 21, Article 10,
Humane Treatment of Persons Deprived of Liberty (Forty-fourth session, 1992), Compilation of General Comments and General
Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, UN Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev.7 (1994), para. 3.

223

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted and opened for
signature, ratification and accession by G.A. Res. 39/46, entered into force June 16, 1995, ratified by Cuba on May 17, 1995..
Article 16 (1) provides that, just as with torture, each state party is required to prevent other acts of cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article 1 of the convention, when such acts
are committed by, at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Restricted Visits and Correspondence
Prison authorities arbitrarily suspend visits from family and friends, ban phone calls, and
intercept letters to political prisoners who express political views or challenge prison
conditions. Cuban law states that prisoners have the right to receive visits and maintain
correspondence with non-prisoners,224 privileges also provided for by international human
rights standards.225 Yet political prisoners informed Human Rights Watch that these rights
were routinely suspended when prisoners exercised dissent, such as participating in hunger
strikes, reporting abuses by guards, chanting pro-human rights or anti-government slogans,
or refusing to wear prison uniforms. When authorities cancel visits, they not only deny
prisoners critical emotional support, but also deprive them of food and medicine, as family
members are allowed to bring provisions to supplement the inadequate rations and
medicine provided by prison officials.
Political activist and human right defender Alexander Santos Hernández said authorities
repeatedly denied him family visits during the two years he spent in Cuba Sí! prison in
Holguín from 2006 to 2008. When Santos, who was serving time for “dangerousness,”
asked prison officials for a reason:
They said that you had to be on your best behavior—salute the military, dress
as a prisoner, go to [pro-government] events in the prison, go to
“rehabilitation” classes—that visits were like a bonus and would require the
signature of the rehabilitation department. Since we weren’t doing any of
these things, they wouldn’t allow us visitors.226
Lázara Bárbara Sendiña Recarde said authorities repeatedly cancelled her visits with her
husband, political prisoner Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco when he was being held in

official capacity. Article 16 explicitly states that the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12, and 13 shall apply with the
substitution for references to torture or references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 10 relates to the training of relevant personnel who may be involved in the custody, interrogation, or treatment of any
individual subjected to any form of arrest, detention or imprisonment. Article 11 ensures interrogation rules, instructions,
methods, and practices—as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of persons subjected to any form of arrest,
detention, or imprisonment in any territory under its jurisdiction—are designed to preventing any cases of ill-treatment.
Article 12 requires each state party proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to
believe that an act of ill treatment has been committed. And article 13 requires that each state party shall ensure that any
individual who alleges he/she has been subjected to ill treatment has the right to complain to, and to have his case promptly
and impartially examined by, its competent authorities.
224

Criminal Code, art. 31(1)f.

225

UN Body of Principles, No. 19; UN Standard Minimum Rules, art. 37.

226

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernández, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

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Combinado del Este prison in Havana in 2008 and 2009.227 Prieto had been held in at least
two other prisons (Canaleta and Morón), his wife said, including both of which had
arbitrarily suspended visits. René Velásquez González, the son of political prisoner Ramón
Velásquez Toranzo, said prison authorities would only allow him to visit his father in 2007
on the condition that he try to convince him to abandon a hunger strike.228
Family members of political prisoners said authorities routinely failed to notify them when
visits had been cancelled. Because the journey to prisons is often a long and costly one for
relatives, due to transportation costs and food purchases for inmates, the practice places an
unnecessary burden on family members. Lázara Bárbara Sendiña Recarde told Human Rights
Watch that on several occasions authorities did not notify her that her visits with her
husband had been cancelled until she arrived at the prison.229

Arbitrary Prison Transfers
Under Fidel Castro, Cuban authorities consistently sent political prisoners to prisons far from
their families, despite the existence of prisons significantly closer to their homes. After the
March 2003 crackdown, for example, Manuel Vázquez Portal—a journalist from Havana who
was sentenced to 18 years in prison—was imprisoned more than 750 km east of his home, in
Santiago de Cuba’s Boniato prison. Meanwhile, Jesús Mustafá Felipe—one of the organizers
of the Varela Project from Santiago, who was sentenced to 25 years in the same crackdown—
was sent roughly 750 km in the other direction, to Havana’s Combinado del Este prison. This
tactic seemed designed to deliberately increase hardship for prisoners and their families,
making visits more costly and difficult, and consequently less frequent. The practice
contravenes international standards, which state that prisoners should be kept reasonably
close to their places of residence.230
Under Raúl Castro, the government has reduced its use of this tactic, imprisoning new
political prisoners in facilities closer to their families, and moving some of the prisoners who
were jailed in the 2003 crackdown closer to their homes.231 Interviews with a range of

227

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Lázara Bárbara Sendiña Recarde, Cuba, March 6, 2009.

228

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with René Velásquez Gonzáles, Cuba, June 27, 2009.

229

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Lazara Bárbara Sendiña Recarde, Cuba, March 6, 2009.

230

UN Body of Principles, No. 20.

231

It should be noted that, even for families who are located relatively close to family members, the visit still constitutes a
significant journey, both in terms of the cost and the difficulty. Ground transportation to prisons is often arduous. Families
must expend precious resources on the journey. And even prisons that are relatively close can necessitate a journey of several
days.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

political prisoners arrested under Raúl Castro, however, suggest the use of a new tactic:
moving prisoners between different units within prisons. Five prisoners sentenced since July
2006 said they were subject to frequent, arbitrary moves from one prison unit to another,
increasing their risk of being attacked in large cells by individuals convicted of violent crimes,
they said.
Human rights defender Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín said he was moved to seven different
“companies” (companías)—groups of 80 to 100 prisoners—from 2006 to 2008, when he was
imprisoned for “dangerousness.”232 Political activist Digzan Saavedra Prat said he was
transferred to five different units during the year he was in prison (2008).233 Both men told
Human Rights Watch that political prisoners were the only ones who were transferred
between units, suggesting the strategy was specifically designed to target those serving time
for expressing dissent.

Exposure to Tuberculosis
In three separate instances—each of which occurred in a different prison at a different time—
political prisoners said officials moved them in close proximity to prisoners with
tuberculosis. In all three incidents, political prisoners were moved out of cells where they
were not exposed to TB, and were given no explanation for their transfer. The cases suggest
a deliberate effort on the part of authorities to expose political prisoners to a highly
contagious and potentially deadly disease. They also contravene international standards,
which call for medical officers to see to the segregation of prisoners with infectious and
contagious conditions.234
The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that overcrowding, poor nutrition, poor
ventilation, and limited access to insufficient healthcare make prisons breeding grounds
and incubators for TB. 235 The TB-incidence rate in prisons can be more than 30 times higher
than that outside prisons. Prisoners with serious health problems, such as those endemic to
Cuban prisons, are more susceptible to TB and suffer more adverse health effects, including
death. The mortality rate for TB in prisons can be five times higher in prisons than outside.236
232

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Luis Rodriguez Desdín, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

233

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Digzan Saavedra Prat, Cuba, March 17, 2009.

234

UN Standard Minimum Rules, art. 24.

235

World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, “Status Paper on Prisons and Tuberculosis,” 2007,
http://www.euro.who.int/document/e89906.pdf, (accessed October 16, 2009).
236

World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, “Tuberculosis and prisons,” EU/TB/FS10, September 3, 2007,
http://www.euro.who.int/document/TUB/fs10e_tbprisons.pdf (accessed October 16, 2009).

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In 2008, dissident Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz was serving a two-year sentence for
“dangerousness” in Canaleta prison in Ciego de Ávila, when he said he was suddenly
transferred to a different unit.
I was very surprised because the prisoners told me when I arrived there, “Here they don’t
bring in or take out anyone because we’re in quarantine here.” And I asked, “for illness?”
And they said, “For tuberculosis.” It was very suspicious that they put me in that place where
there were 70-something cases of tuberculosis.237
Pacheco said the unit to which he was transferred consisted of roughly 75 prisoners, who
shared an overcrowded, single cell with poor ventilation and two squat toilets—conditions
that are ideal for spreading the virus. To his knowledge, he was the only person in the unit
who was not infected with tuberculosis.
Two members of the group of 75 political prisoners arrested in 2003—both of whom were
already suffering from serious medical ailments—said that they were transferred to cells with
prisoners infected with TB. Dr. Alfredo Pulido López told his wife he was transferred into a
TB-quarantined cell in Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey in 2007.238 And in 2005, Normando
Hernández Gonzalez said he was assigned to a cell in Kilo 5½ prison in Pinar del Río with a
prisoner who had TB.239 Neither political prisoner had been diagnosed with TB before his
move, and they were given no explanation for the transfers. Because Pulido and Hernández
were suffering from severe and chronic health problems at the time of their exposure, both
were at particular risk of being infected.
As a result of their exposure, both Pulido and Hernández had to be given extended medical
treatment for TB, consisting of an aggressive regimen of antibiotics, which aggravated some
of their existing health problems. As Hernández wrote about his treatment in an open letter
from prison in September 2005:
The two pills I took from Monday to Friday for six months worsened my
gastrointestinal diseases, my gastritis became a chronic gastroduodenitis,
my small intestine inflammation also became chronic, and I began to

237

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, March 19, 2009.

238

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rebeca Rodríguez Souto, wife of Dr. Alfredo Pulido López, Cuba, February
10, 2009.

239

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Yaraí Reyes Marín, wife of Normando Hernández González, Cuba, February
12, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

experience problems in my colon, diagnosed by the specialist in
gastroenterology Miraida.240

Unhygienic Conditions
Across Cuba’s wide range of prisons, conditions routinely fail to meet requirements set by
Cuban law and international standards.241 Cuban law says the state is required to provide
those deprived of liberty with “articles of basic necessity” and “promote better prison
conditions.”242 However, former prisoners and family members of current prisoners uniformly
said that food was insufficient and unhygienic, and water was contaminated; that cells were
overcrowded, lacked proper ventilation, and were infested with rodents, mosquitoes, and
other insects; and that bedding was virtually non-existent, with prisoners routinely sleeping
on the floor. These poor conditions affect all prisoners.
Dozens of prisoners and their family members said it was not uncommon for as many as 100
inmates to share a single cell with only one toilet. International standards state that different
categories of prisoners should be held in separate jails or at least in different quarters,243 but,
as already noted, political prisoners said authorities routinely flouted this norm.
Overcrowding often leads to or exacerbates other problems, including unhygienic living
conditions, poor health, and a lack of privacy. The European Committee for the Prevention of
Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has found that:
All of the services and activities within a prison will be adversely affected if it
is required to [hold] more prisoners than it was designated to accommodate;
the overall quality of life in the establishment will be lowered, perhaps
significantly. Moreover, the level of overcrowding in a prison, or in a
particular part of it, might be such as to be in itself inhuman or degrading
from a physical standpoint.244

240

Normando Hernández González, “Open letter from a Cuban prisoner of conscience” (Carta abierta de prisionero de
conciencia cubano), September 19, 2005, http://www.payolibre.com/PRESO-%20Normando%20Hernandez.htm#Carta_A
(accessed October 2, 2009).

241

Criminal Code, arts. 31.1 (b) and 31.1(f).

242

ICCPR, art. 10(1); UN Standard Minimum Rules, art. 20.

243

UN Standard Minimum Rules, arts. 8 and 9(2).

244

European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), “The CPT
Standards: Substantive Sections of the CPT’s General Reports,” CPT/Inf/E (2002) 1-Rev. 2006, Strasbourg, October 2006,
http://www.cpt.coe.int/EN/documents/eng-standards.pdf (accessed October 16, 2009), p. 17, para. 46.

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76

Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz described the conditions in Canaleta prison in Ciego de Ávila, where
he was a political prisoner for “dangerousness”: “Each cell should fit 60 people, but in most
cases there are 80 people, and there are times that there aren’t even two toilets. The toilets
are... spaces with a hole to put your feet; there is not even any disinfectant.”245 In a March
2009 telephone conversation from prison with a local human rights defender, political
prisoner Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco said that in January 2009—when he was being held in
Combinado del Este prison in Havana—the prison had no water for an entire week. As a
result, prison officials had to ration water. “We were thirsty, and we did not have water to
bathe ourselves or flush the toilets,” Prieto said.246
Iván Hernández Carrillo, a journalist who has been serving a 25-year sentence since 2003
and currently is being held in Guanajal prison in Villa Clara, told his mother during visits that
the food he was provided was scarce and in a state of decomposition, and that eating it gave
him severe stomach pains. He also said the prison’s water supply was contaminated, and
that he had repeatedly contracted parasites. Hernández was one of many prisoners in his
cell unit of 50 prisoners who was suffering from a staph infection and skin rashes, a problem
he attributed to the unclean conditions and all of the cellmates sharing a single toilet.247
Víctor Yunier Fernández Martínez, a political activist who was moved to three prisons during
three years of a “dangerousness” sentence, said the food and water in all of the prisons
gave him parasites and bacterial infections.248
Unhygienic conditions can contribute to heightened rates of disease and death in prison,
and have been found to violate protections against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment,
as well as rights to life, health, and dignity.249

Health Problems and Inadequate Medical Treatment
The Cuban Criminal Code guarantees all detainees the right to medical care in cases of
need,250 but political prisoners said they were routinely denied treatment for serious medical

245

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, March 19, 2009.

246

Juan Carlos González Leiva, “En total rebeldía,” interview with Hugo Damián Prieto, prisoner of conscience, Cubanet,
March 10, 2009, http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y09/marzo09/10_C_4.html (accessed October 16, 2009).
247

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Asunción Carrillo, mother of prisoner Iván Hernández Carrillo, Cuba,
February 20, 2009.
248

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Víctor Yunier Fernandez Martinez, Cuba, March 5, 2009.

249

Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Winston Caesar Case, Judgment of March 11, 2005, Inter-Am.Ct.H.R., (Ser. C) No.
123 (2005), para. 50(p); U.N. Human Rights Committee, Paul Kelly v. Jamaica, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/41/D/253/1987, April 2, 1991,
para. 5.7; Other cases cited in Rick Lines, “The right to health of prisoners in international human rights law,” International
Journal of Prisoner Health, vol. 4(1), March 2008, p. 25.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

problems, many of which emerged over the course of prolonged imprisonment. They also
said that poor prison conditions—which produced and then exacerbated such health
problems—were neither monitored nor remedied, as international standards demand.251 In
particular, political prisoners said they were refused medical treatment as punishment for
their previous “counterrevolutionary” activities or for voicing dissent within prison.
Under international human rights law prisoners, like all other persons, enjoy the right to the
highest attainable standard of health, which means that prison authorities should take
practical measures to protect the physical integrity and the health of persons who have been
deprived of their liberty. Failure to provide adequate health care or medical treatment to a
detainee in prison may contribute to conditions amounting to inhuman or degrading
treatment.
States have an obligation to ensure access to health facilities, goods, and services to all
persons, including prisoners, without discrimination on the basis of their political or other
status. Governments also have obligations to “refrain from denying or limiting equal access
for all persons, including prisoners or detainees to preventive, curative, and palliative health
services,” and to abstain from “enforcing discriminatory practices as state policy.”252
Every former political prisoner and family member of a current prisoner we spoke with said
that detainees suffered serious health ailments as a result of the substandard conditions,
and that medical treatment was inadequate or nonexistent. Dr. Alfredo Pulido López was a
healthy 43-year-old man when he was arrested in the March 2003 crackdown and sentenced
to 14 years in prison for writing articles that were critical of the Cuban government. By August
2004, his wife Rebeca Rodríguez Souto said, he started experiencing stomach ailments and
manifested the early signs of osteoporosis. In the following months, he experienced his first
migraines, a significant loss of weight, hypoglycemia, and anxiety problems. With time, the
problems mounted. Pulido had earned his title as a dentist, but by the second year of his
detention, due to poor nutrition and lack of dental care, he started losing teeth. Medical
check-ups were rare and inadequate, his wife said, the doctors repeatedly failing to
prescribe any effective treatments for his ailments. Then came the onset of liver problems,

250

Criminal Code, art. 31(1) section “ch”.

251

UN Standard Minimum Rules, art. 26.

252

UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “Substantive Issues Arising in the Implementation of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,” General Comment No. 14, The Right to the Highest Attainable
Standard of Health, E/C.12/2000/4 (2000),
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/40d009901358b0e2c1256915005090be?Opendocument (accessed August 15,
2009), para. 34.

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insomnia, and the rapid deterioration of Pulido’s vision, Rodríguez said. As of October 2009,
Pulido was still being held in Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey, where he was suffering from 17
different chronic health problems.253
Dozens of former political prisoners and family members of current political prisoners say
that medical check-ups are not provided, even when prisoners manifest serious illnesses.
Alexander Santos Hernández, a political activist and human rights defender from Holguín,
said that shortly after being sent to Cuba Sí! prison in Holguín in 2006 for “dangerousness,”
his face filled with painful pustules. It was an ailment he had never experienced before, and
one he attributed to the unsanitary conditions, contaminated water, and poor hygiene in the
prison. He said he repeatedly asked to see a doctor, but that prison officials ignored his
requests. Left with no other options and experiencing serious pain, he undertook a hunger
strike to demand a medical exam. Prison authorities waited until he had fasted for 23 days
before they allowed him to see a doctor, Santos said.254
Julio Antonio Valdez Guevara, one of the 75 political prisoners arrested in 2003, said he
suffered the onset of serious kidney problems within months of being imprisoned. He told
Human Rights Watch that in January 2004 he experienced a severely adverse reaction to an
injection he was given in Matanzas’s Canaleta prison:
I was convulsing, and a doctor said to the head [of the prison], “He is very ill,
his heart is dilated and his blood pressure is at 200 and something, his life is
at risk. He must go to a hospital.” And the prison head said, “You know that
he is not an ordinary prisoner. Until I have authorization from Havana, I
cannot move him.”255
Valdez Guevara said that, in spite of his critical condition and the advice of the prison’s
doctor, he was returned to his cell, where his condition worsened and he suffered
considerable pain.
Such failures to provide timely medical attention may constitute inhuman or degrading
treatment, as they unnecessarily exacerbate the suffering of prisoners.256
253

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rebeca Rodríguez Souto, Cuba, February 10, 2009.

254

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernández, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

255

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Julio Antonio Valdez Guevara, Miami, United States, February 27, 2009.

256

Rick Lines, “The right to health of prisoners in international human rights law,” International Journal of Prisoner Health,
vol. 4, no.1, March 2008, pp. 22-24.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Despite signs that prison conditions aggravate the illnesses of all prisoners, doctors and
prison officials consistently fail to ensure that harmful conditions are improved, or to move
sick prisoners to facilities less likely to exacerbate their illnesses. This lack of oversight falls
foul of international standards requiring that prison medical officials report cases in which
prisoners’ health will be harmed by continued imprisonment; that medical officials regularly
inspect prisons and alert prison officials to substandard conditions; and that prison officials
take action to remedy the shortcomings.257 The combination of lack of treatment and
unchanged conditions described in testimonies collected by Human Rights Watch suggests
a deliberate disregard for the health of prisoners.
International standards state that records of prisoners’ medical examinations should be
kept and that prisoners should have access to their records,258 yet political prisoners and
their families said that they were repeatedly denied access to information about their health.
Although such records should not be shared with family members without patients’ prior
consent, our interviews confirmed that the issue was not one of consent. Political prisoners
said they repeatedly requested medical information for themselves and for their families,
only to be denied. The lack of information adds to the emotional hardship of family
members, who find themselves uninformed and powerless as they witness the decline in
health of a loved one.
A boxer and physical fitness instructor, Ariel Sigler Amaya was in excellent shape when he
was arrested in the March 2003 crackdown. The leader of an unofficial political group, he
was sentenced along with his brother, Guido Sigler Amaya, to 20 years in prison for “acts
against the independence or territorial integrity of the state.”259 By 2009, he said, his
illnesses included “chronic gastritis, pulmonary emphysema, chronic pharyngitis, a
bacterium, and gallbladder stones.”260 Having been moved between at least four different
prisons and two military hospitals, at 47 years old Ariel can no longer walk, and is now
confined to a wheelchair. “He already lost feeling in his legs—they are so thin that you can
see the bones,” said his brother, Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya, following a February 2009

257

UN Standard Minimum Rules, arts. 24(1) and 25(2).

258

UN Body of Principles, No. 26.

259

Sentence 9/2003, Tribunal Provincial Popular de Matanzas (People’s Provincial Court of Matanzas), Case No. 7/2003,
Judgment, 5 April 2003, http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-matanzas-9s.cfm.

260

Juan Carlos González Leiva, “Interview with prisoner of conscience Ariel Sigler Amaya” (Entrevista al prisionero de
conciencia Ariel Sigler Amaya), August 5, 2009, http://www.payolibre.com/PRESO%20Ariel%20Sigler%20Amaya.htm#Entrevista (accessed August 15, 2009).

New Castro, Same Cuba

80

visit to the military hospital where Ariel was being held. “He doesn’t have mobility in his
shoulders and arms. He has lost more than 100 pounds.... He is unrecognizable.”261
In spite of Ariel’s deteriorating condition, his family members said they have consistently
been denied information about his health. They have not been allowed to meet with doctors
or see any of his medical records, his brother said. As a result, Ariel’s family and a small
group of supporters held a peaceful protest on February 18, 2009, outside of the hospital
where he was being treated to demand that he be given a full medical examination and that
he and his family be informed of the results. According to his brother, the protest was
forcibly broken up by State Security agents, who beat Ariel’s wife and 15-year-old son
without provocation.262

Harassment and Beatings
Human Rights Watch documented dozens of cases in which prison officials physically
abused, harassed, and humiliated political prisoners in jails. Such attacks often were
compounded by prison authorities’ subsequent denial of medical treatment to the victims.
This treatment directly violates Cuban law, which states that, “The suspended individual
cannot be subjected to corporal punishment, nor is it permissible to use any measure
against him which signifies humiliation or would infringe upon his dignity.”263 It also
contravenes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international standards
prohibiting the use of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
Political prisoner Normando Hernández González told his wife that in March 2006, without
provocation, the “re-educator” in prison Kilo 5½ in Pinar del Río twisted his arms behind his
back, hit him on the backs of his legs, and threw him down a flight of stairs. Hernández said
he was then placed in solitary confinement for seven days and denied medical care for the
injuries he sustained in the fall.264 Hernández, a journalist, is serving a 25-year sentence for
“acts against the independence or territorial integrity of the state.”
Raymundo Perdigón Brito, another journalist, was beaten repeatedly by guards in January
and February 2008 for complaining about conditions in Nieves Morejón prison in Sancti
Spíritus, according to his sister. Perdigón was sentenced to four years in prison for

261

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya, Cuba, February 12, 2009.

262

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya, Cuba, April 13, 2009.

263

Criminal Code, art. 30.1(8).

264

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Yaraí Reyes Marín, Cuba, February 12, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

“dangerousness” in December 2006. In one of the incidents, his sister told Human Rights
Watch, “[the guards] brought him with his hands shackled to a place known as the ‘tunnel’
and savagely beat him. He fell unconscious and was taken to a punishment cell for ten
days.”265 In 2006, prison authorities in Villa Clara’s Guanajal prison beat dissident Iván
Hernández Carrillo and called him a “black monkey” (Hernández is Afro-Cuban). Two years
later, the internal prison director (jefe del interior) of the same prison told Hernández that he
controlled all of the common prisoners, and that they would do whatever he told them to do,
including attacking Hernández.266
Abuse is not limited to physical attacks. Several political prisoners spoke of being forced to
commit degrading acts, as well as of suffering verbal and psychological abuse. Journalist
Alfredo Pulido López said that, in 2008, guards in Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey stripped off his
clothes and forced him to walk down the corridor between prisoners’ cells naked, while
authorities made lewd jokes about his wife.267

Solitary Confinement
Prison authorities routinely subject political prisoners to solitary confinement, either
arbitrarily imposing it on political prisoners or using it as a means of reprimanding dissent
within the prison system.
International standards state that “punishment by placing [the prisoner] in a dark cell, and
all cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments shall be completely prohibited,”268 and experts
have concluded that prolonged solitary confinement may rise to the level of cruel, inhuman,
and degrading treatment or torture.269 Solitary confinement is detrimental to mental and
physical health, and therefore international standards require that it “be used only in
exceptional circumstances or when absolutely necessary,” and that it last for the shortest
amount of time possible.270
265

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, Cuba, March 4, 2009.

266

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Asunción Carrillo, Cuba, February 20, 2009.

267

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rebeca Rodríguez Souto, Cuba, February 12, 2009.

268

UN Standard Minimum Rules, art. 31.

269

United Nations Human Rights Committee, General Comment 20, (Forty-fourth session, 1992), Compilation of General
Comments and General Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, U.N. Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev.1 at 30 (1994),
art. 6.
270

“The practice [of solitary confinement] has a clearly documented negative impact on mental health, and therefore should
be used only in exceptional circumstances or when absolutely necessary for criminal investigation purposes. In all cases,
solitary confinement should be used for the shortest period of time.” United Nations General Assembly, Interim Report of the
Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, UN Doc. A/63/175, July 28,
2008, p. 2.

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However, nearly all of the political prisoners interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they
were subjected to solitary confinement at some point in their detention. They described
cramped, squalid cells without bedding—some in total darkness, others with permanent
bright lights—where they were deprived of all human contact. They said they were repeatedly
denied visits by medical professionals, a further contravention of international standards,
and provided with rotting, inadequate food at irregular intervals.271
From 2006 to 2009, political activist Víctor Yunier Fernández Martínez was imprisoned in
1580 prison in Havana and Canaleta prison in Ciego de Ávila, where he said authorities
repeatedly placed him in solitary confinement for days, weeks, and even months at a time as
punishment for his acts of dissent, which included voicing criticism of the Cuban
government and engaging in hunger strikes. He told Human Rights Watch:
The cells are one meter or one-and-a-half meters wide by two meters long.
You sleep during the day on a concrete platform and at night you get a
mattress, which is removed at daybreak. You are not allowed to have any
belongings, and the food is terrible.... Some cells have a little window, others
none. Some cells have light, others don’t.272
In January 2007, journalist Ramón Velásquez Toranzo was sentenced to three years for
“dangerousness” and was sent to El Típico provincial prison in Las Tunas. According to his
daughter, he was immediately placed in solitary confinement for refusing to eat. She said he
was stripped of his clothes and placed in a tiny cell, which flooded with water when it rained
and had no bedding. In another case, Yordis García Fournier spent three consecutive months
in solitary confinement since he was sentenced in September 2008 for refusing to cooperate
with prison authorities, according to his brother.273

“It is generally acknowledged that all forms of solitary confinement without appropriate mental and physical stimulation are
likely, in the long-term, to have damaging effects resulting in deterioration of mental faculties and social abilities.” The
European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), “Report to the
Finnish Government on the Visit to Finland carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 10 to 20 May 1992,” CPT/Inf (93) 8, Strasbourg, April 1, 1993, p. 26.
“The principle of proportionality calls for a balance to be struck between the requirement of the situation and the imposition
of a solitary confinement-type regime, which can have very harmful consequences for the person concerned. Solitary
confinement can in certain circumstances amount to inhuman and degrading treatment; in any event, all forms of solitary
confinement should last for as short a time as possible.” CPT, “Report to the Icelandic Government on the Visit to Iceland
carried out by the CPT from 6 to 12 July 1993,” CPT/Inf (94) 8, Strasbourg, June 28, 1994, p. 26.
271

UN Standard Minimum Rules, art. 32(3).

272

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with VíctorYúnier Fernández Martínez, Cuba, March 5, 2009.

273

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Niover García Fournier, Cuba, March 14, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Political prisoner Manuel Vázquez Portal said he was immediately placed in solitary
confinement when he arrived at Boniato prison in Santiago de Cuba in 2003. As he
described the conditions:
Punishment cells are one by two meters long, with a bunk made of
corrugated slats with a wooden plank of pressed sugar cane chuff, a dirty
and old cotton wool mattress. They didn’t give us sheets, towels.... There
wasn’t water, just a “Turkish” toilet with a sickening odor. There was a
window with bars an inch in diameter. Everything got in—rain, insects,
rodents, rats. It was a filthy cell.... I remained there from April 25, 2003, to
September 1st, when I began my first hunger strike. There was no access to
doctors.... We all got lung and skin diseases.274
According to Vázquez, six other political prisoners who arrived at Boniato prison at the same
time—men who were also sentenced in the 2003 crackdown—were immediately placed in
similar solitary confinement. One of them was Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos—a trade unionist
who led an unrecognized, small union— who described conditions identical to those
recounted by Vázquez Portal.275

Lack of Adequate Monitoring and Complaint Mechanisms
The Cuban prison system lacks adequate oversight mechanisms and fails to provide
effective means for prisoners to voice complaints. Officials do not remedy abuses that are
brought to their attention, allowing abysmal conditions to persist while those responsible
benefit from total impunity. Such failings violate Cuba’s international obligations—
particularly as Cuba is a party to the Convention against Torture—to offer effective and
confidential remedies to victims of human rights abuses.276

274

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Manuel Vázquez Portal, Miami, United States, February 9, 2009.

275

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos, Miami, United States, April 14, 2009.

276

"Every prisoner shall be allowed to make a request or complaint, without censorship as to substance but in proper form, to
the central prison administration, the judicial authority or other proper authorities through approved channels." UN Standard
Minimum Rules, art. 36, para. 3.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), art. 8 and the Convention against Torture, arts. 2(1) and 4(1), obligate Cuba to
provide an effective remedy for the violations of fundamental rights. The UDHR states that, "Everyone has the right to an
effective remedy by the competent national tribunal for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution
or by law."

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Nevertheless, the Cuban government publicly maintains that its prisons have an effective
monitoring and complaint system, informing the UN in March 2009:
Inmates are entitled to submit complaints and requests to the authorities
and to receive a proper response within a reasonable period, in accordance
with the relevant legislation. Violence and mistreatment, physical or
psychological, are totally prohibited and are crimes under Cuban law. All
prisons are subject to a system of inspection that is independent of the
authority responsible for running them.277
Former prisoners and the family members of current prisoners expressed uncertainty about
who was responsible for monitoring conditions and investigating complaints inside prisons,
and repeatedly said that oversight was neither independent nor effective. Prisoners said
they were not informed of their right to complain nor how to register abuses.
The dissidents we spoke with said that complaints of abuse are routinely met with
inadequate investigations, indifference, or even reprisals. Alexander Santos Hernández, who
was imprisoned in Cuba Sí! prison in Holguín from 2006 to 2008, said of the officer who was
supposedly in charge of receiving complaints: “It is as if [the complaint] were never made,
because whatever it is, the officers are always right. The internal monitor never disciplines or
calls attention to an officer for any violation.”278 Digzan Saavedra Prat, a political activist
who was also imprisoned in Cuba Sí! in 2008 for “dangerousness,” said he went to the
internal prison overseer to seek help when a common prisoner threatened him. In response,
the official told him it was not his problem.279
In three cases, former political prisoners said that the very individuals responsible for
monitoring abuses were themselves the perpetrators of beatings and harassment. Former
political prisoner Víctor Yunier Fernández Martínez said that the internal overseer in prison
1580 in Havana—where he was imprisoned on a “dangerousness” charge—“was one of the
ones who threatened me and even ordered several officers to assault me on September 27,
2006.”280

277

United Nations General Assembly, “Universal Periodic Review: Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic

Review: Cuba,” A/HRC/11/22, March 3, 2009,
http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/Session4/CU/A_HRC_11_22_CUB_E.pdf (accessed August 6, 2009), para. 124.
278

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernández, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

279

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Digzan Saavedra Prat, Cuba, March 17, 2009.

280

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with VíctorYúnier Fernández Martínez, Cuba, March 5, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Left with no other remedy for abuses, political prisoners routinely undertake hunger strikes
and other drastic measures to call attention to their treatment. However, these actions are
often met with further reprisals by prison officials. For example, Yordis García Fournier went
on hunger strike for more than a month in 2008 to protest his unjust treatment by prison
authorities. As punishment for his not eating, prison officials cut off García’s family visits
and placed him in a solitary confinement cell.281

281

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Niover García Fournier, Cuba, March 14, 2009.

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86

VIII. Everyday Forms of Repression
Daily acts of repression punish dissenters and their families in every aspect of their lives.
The government uses short-term detentions to reprimand dissidents for exercising their
fundamental freedoms and prevent them from participating in “counterrevolutionary”
activities such as unofficial meetings. Dissidents are verbally assaulted, harassed, and
beaten by security officers and groups of civilians tied to the state, while organized public
“acts of repudiation” target their homes, subjecting them and their families to humiliation
and even mob attacks.
Government officials repeatedly threaten dissidents with imprisonment if they do not
abandon their activities. They are fired from jobs, denied work, and fined, placing a
significant financial strain on their families. The government also routinely prohibits its
critics from exercising their right to travel within and outside of the island. Finally, dissidents
are subjected to constant and invasive surveillance, the information from which is often
subsequently used against them in sham trials.

Short-term Detention
Security forces routinely carry out short-term detentions to punish dissidents or prevent
them from participating in events seen as “counterrevolutionary.” Dozens of dissidents who
were victims of such arbitrary arrests told Human Rights Watch that they were provided with
no explanation for their detention, and held with convicted prisoners in inhuman conditions
for hours or even days—practices that contravene the Cuban constitution282 and
international standards governing the treatment of prisoners.283
Since Raúl Castro took over for Fidel Castro in 2006, the number of arbitrary detentions has
increased significantly. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation (CCDHRN), a well-respected human rights organization in Cuba, documented
325 arbitrary detentions by security forces in 2007.284 In the first half of 2009, it documented

282

Cuban constitution, art. 58.

283

UDHR, art. 9.

284

Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), “El Gobierno de Cuba Continúa Violando el
Derecho de los Ciudadanos a las Libertades Civiles, Políticas y Económicas,” 2008,
http://www.cubasource.org/pdf/elizardo_informe_08.pdf (accessed February 12, 2009).

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

532.285 Such detentions are routinely timed to prevent individuals from exercising their right
to assemble peacefully.
The widespread use of arbitrary detention is codified in Cuban law, which empowers and in
some instances obligates government officials to make arrests. According to the Criminal
Procedural Law, authorities and police must detain anyone who commits a “crime against
national security,” whose acts “have produced fear or... are committed frequently in the
municipality’s territory,” or against whom “enough evidence exists to reasonably predict
that the accused intends to evade the pursuit of justice.”286 These subjective definitions
allow officers to interpret a wide range of actions as grounds for detention.
In December 2008, the Cuban government preemptively arrested more than 30 people in the
days leading up to International Human Rights Day (December 10). Most were arrested as
they attempted to travel to Havana to participate in small meetings of unofficial groups or
dissident activities planned for the day, which marked the 60th anniversary of the signing of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.287
Among those targeted were dissidents Belinda Salas, Lázaro Joaquín Alonso Román,
Marlene Bermúdez, and Roberto Marrero de la Rosa, who were attacked on December 9,
2008, in Havana after using computers to check email at the US Interest Section. Salas is a
leader of an unofficial women’s organization, Cuba’s Latin American Federation of Rural
Women, and her husband, Alonso, a former political prisoner. According to Bermudez and
Marrero—human rights defenders from Camagüey—eight security officers assaulted the
dissidents and beat them severely with no apparent justification. Alonso was hit repeatedly
in the groin, face, and head until he was knocked unconscious. Officers tore the shirts off of
Bermúdez and Salas, leaving them partially naked. Alonso, Bermudez, and Marrero were all
detained, only to be released after December 10, with no charge.288

285

CCDHRN, “The Human Rights Situation in Cuba After Three Years of Changes in the Highest Levels of the Government,”
August 10, 2009,
http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/cuba/otherresources/CubaCCHRNRReportISemester2009.p
df (accessed February 12, 2009).
286

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 243.

287

“Cuba: Free Dissidents Now,” Human Rights Watch news release, December 11, 2008,
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/11/cuba-free-dissidents-now; Sara Miller Llana, “Cuban activists say they were
beaten on eve of 60th human rights anniversary,” The Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 2008,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1211/p25s02-woam.html (accessed May 4, 2009).
288

Human Rights Watch interview with Roberto Marrero la Rosa, Cuba, June 2009.

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88

Marta Díaz Rondon, a human rights defender, said she had been detained a half dozen
times in recent years in advance of planned meetings and gatherings with fellow dissidents.
Díaz said, “Every day that there is going to be an activity, such as a peaceful march, they
take repressive actions. They don’t allow us to see each other or to travel.”289 In March 2009,
she said she had been detained when trying to visit Jorge Luís García Pérez—also known as
Antúnez—who was staging a hunger strike in his home to call for an end to abuses of
political prisoners.
Three dissidents in eastern Cuba said they were the victims of a practice they called
kidnappings (secuestros), in which plainclothes agents arrested them, took them to
undisclosed locations, interrogated them, and then released them. Marco Antonio Lima
Dalmau, a journalist and human rights defender from Holguín who was the victim of one of
these “kidnappings” in 2009, said he never even knew to which part of Cuba’s security
forces his captors belonged, and was given no record of his detention.290

Beatings and Excessive Use of Force
Dissidents engaged in acts seen as “counterrevolutionary” are routinely subjected to
assaults, beatings, and excessive use of force by security officers. The attacks are carried
out both by government officials and members of groups of sympathetic civilians tied to the
government, such as “committees for the defense of the revolution” (CDRs) and “rapid
response brigades.”291
On February 24, 2008, journalist and human rights defender Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito,
together with her father and brother, participated in a small, peaceful demonstration in
Sancti Spíritus to mark the anniversary of a 1996 incident in which the Cuban government
shot down two planes from a Miami-based organization.292 She said security officers

289

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Marta Díaz Rondón, Cuba, March 17, 2009.

290

Human Rights Watch interview with Marco Antonio Lima Dalmau, Cuba, June 2009.

291

“Rapid response brigades” (brigadas de respuesta rápida) were formed in advance of the 1991 Pan American Games, in
order to provide the Cuban government with a fast response force to counteract any demonstrations by critics of the
government in the presence of international media. See Benigno E. Aguirre, “Social Control in Cuba,” Latin American Politics
and Society, vol. 44, no. 2, Summer 2002, pp. 78-79.
292

On February 24, 1996, the Cuban Air Force shot down two civilian planes from the Miami-based group, Brothers to the
Rescue. Four Cuban Americans on board were killed. The group had worked to rescue Cubans adrift in the Straits of Florida
(the body of water between Cuba and the Florida Keys) while trying to make the journey by water to the United States, and had
also staged protest flights over the island, such as one dropping copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
condemning Fidel Castro. The group claimed they were attacked over international waters; Cuba said they were not. Larry
Rohter, “Cuba Blames US in Downing of Planes,” The New York Times, February 27, 1996,
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/27/world/cuba-blames-us-in-downing-of-planes.html (accessed July 17, 2009); Bárbara
Crossette, “US Says Cubans Knew They Fired on Civilian Planes,” The New York Times, February 28, 1996,

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

disrupted the rally, “savagely beat” the participants, and took her, her father, and her
brother to a police station. There, police officers threw her father against a wall and put her
in a stranglehold until she lost consciousness.293
Alexander Santos Hernández, a dissident in Holguín, said he was assaulted in June 2006 by
eight members of a “rapid response brigade”—a group of civilian sympathizers tied to the
government. The group, which was led by a ranking officer in the local police department,
attacked him in the street without any provocation, telling him he would be imprisoned or
killed if he did not abandon his “counterrevolutionary” activities.294
In four separate instances in Matanzas, Holguín, and Las Tunas, dissidents told Human
Rights Watch that they narrowly escaped being hit by cars that deliberately tried to run them
over. The intended victims said that the drivers or passengers yelled comments during or
after the attacks that suggested they were targeted because of their political activities.
Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya, a human rights defender and brother of two political prisoners,
said a car tried to run him over in January 2006 when he was riding his bike to the sugar
plantation where he was working in Matanzas province:295
The car was coming from behind while I was riding my bike. It had its lights
on, but I felt it was accelerating and when they had sped up they shut off the
lights at great speed. My survival instinct kicked in and I managed to make a
hard turn, which saved my life. I almost cut my belly with the machete I was
carrying, since I rolled three times while on the bike.
[The people in the car] shouted, two men and a woman, saying horrible
things like "Counterrevolutionary, we are going to kill you!" Then they
disappeared.296

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/28/world/us-says-cubans-knew-they-fired-on-civilian-planes.html (accessed July 17,
2009).
293

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, Cuba, March 4, 2009.

294

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernandez, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

295

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya, Cuba, February 12, 2009. Juan Francisco was a
licensed economist until he was fired from his job for his economic ideas, which he said his superiors deemed “Gorbachevesque” (Gorbachista), and was assigned to work on a sugar plantation, a field in which he had no previous experience.

296

Ibid.

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90

Dissidents also reported a pattern of excessive force by police and state security officers in
the course of arrests. On August 31, 2008, two members of the unofficial political group,
Youth for Democracy (Jovenes por la Democracia), Yordis García Fournier and Isael Poveda
Silva, went to a police station in Guantanamo to visit Enyor Díaz Allen, a fellow member who
had been arbitrarily detained the day before.297 When the police would not permit the visit,
García and Poveda stood outside the station and began shouting pro-human rights and antiCastro slogans. Without warning—as they would later tell family members—police fired
teargas at them and stormed out of the station, punching and kicking them repeatedly even
though they did not fight back.298 García and Poveda were later sentenced to one year and
one year and four months in prison, respectively, for acting in contempt of authority.
Dissidents and family members who tried to attend trials of political detainees say they were
routinely harassed, threatened, and, in at least four cases, physically attacked. Simply
attempting to observe the administration of justice put them in danger.
When journalist Raymundo Perdigón Brito was sentenced in December 2006 for
“dangerousness,” his family attended the trial. When Perdigón’s family left the court in
Sancti Spíritus, members of a “rapid response brigade” swarmed around them, beating
them while police looked on, his sister said.299
In September 2008, human rights defender Ramona Sánchez Ramírez tried to attend the
appeal of a pair of dissidents in Guantanamo. The dissidents had been sentenced with
contempt for chanting anti-government slogans in public. Sánchez said that when
authorities would not let her into the trial, she joined a peaceful protest outside the
courthouse with dissidents and friends of the accused. Without warning or provocation, a
mob of security officers, uniformed court officials, and members of a “rapid response
brigade” attacked the demonstrators with sticks and other weapons. She said they were
beaten even though they offered no resistance.300

297

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Enyor Díaz Allen, Cuba, March 14, 2009. Enyor Díaz Allen, a member of
Youth for Democracy (Jóvenes por la Democracia), was arrested on August 30, 2008, in a public park in Guantánamo, where he
was publicly voicing criticisms of the Cuban government.

298

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Niover García Fournier, the brother of Yordis, Cuba, March 14, 2009. García
Fournier and Poveda Silva were sentenced on September 4, 2008 to one year, and one year and four months, respectively,
both for the charge of desacato.
299

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, sister of Raymundo, Cuba, March 4, 2009.
Perdigón’s father had to be taken to a medical clinic for treatment for injuries he sustained in the attack. Ana Margarita and
her father were attacked a second time as they left the clinic.

300

Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Ramona Sánchez Ramírez, Cuba, March 13 and 14, 2009. The attack on
Sánchez and other peaceful protestors took place during the appeal of Yordis García Fournier and Isael Poveda Silva. The

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Public Acts of Repudiation
Acts of repudiation (actos de repudio) are public protests held outside the homes of
dissidents. Like other attacks, the acts are intended to humiliate and intimidate individuals
who voice dissent, and have repeatedly resulted in mob violence. Supposedly planned by
civilians, the accounts of victims suggest that government officials collaborate with
“committees for the defense of the revolution” in carrying out the acts.
Acts of repudiation last anywhere from several hours to a full day. According to the victims,
the participants’ tactics include yelling insults and verbal threats, banging on pots and pans
to create noise, throwing stones at homes and defacing them with insulting graffiti, illegally
invading homes, and physically assaulting the inhabitants.
While the acts are supposedly carried out by neighbors, every victim of acts of repudiation
pointed to evidence that suggested the government’s orchestrating role. Many said the
participants were bused to their homes in state-owned vehicles, such as military trucks or
public buses. The victims also said they had never met the participants before, who
therefore had no way of knowing about their activities, let alone justification for denouncing
them. In addition, victims said they observed certain participants wearing military fatigues or
other government uniforms, suggesting they worked for the state.
Roberto Marrero la Rosa, a human rights defender from Camagüey, said he and his family
had been the targets of six acts of repudiation in the past several years.301 He said the
agitators, who were bused in from other neighborhoods, threw stones at his house and
yelled insults for hours, calling him a “mercenary” of the United States and a “worm.” The
repeated acts were so frightening that Marrero la Rosa’s daughter decided to move out of the
house with her child. Marco Antonio Lima Dalmau said that when he and his family tried to
leave their home in Holguín during one such act of repudiation in 2008, they were beaten
severely by a mob.302
Yet despite the violations produced by such acts, not one of the eight victims of acts of
repudiation we interviewed said police had intervened to protect them. Nor were any of the
people participating in such acts detained, even when they committed acts that violated the
law, such as illegally entering homes or attacking residents, and even when their behavior
incident was confirmed in a Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Niover García Fournier, brother of Yordis García
Fournier, in Cuba, on March 14, 2009 who was also part of the peaceful gathering that was attacked.
301

Human Rights Watch interview with Roberto Marrero la Rosa, Cuba, June 2009.

302

Human Rights Watch interview with Marco Antonio Lima Dalmau, Cuba, June 2009.

New Castro, Same Cuba

92

clearly “produced alarm”303— one of the broad categories under which Cuban authorities are
required to detain people.

Threats and Warnings
In addition to the implicit threat posed by a legal system designed to criminalize dissent, the
government explicitly threatens dissidents with imprisonment, physical violence, and other
punishments. In the case of “dangerousness,” these warnings are built into the law itself.
The Criminal Code states that individuals engaged in “antisocial behavior” should receive
official warnings informing them of their “dangerousness.” These warnings are designed to
bring about a change in behavior to “prevent socially dangerous activities.”304 For dissidents,
the warnings signal imminent imprisonment if “counterrevolutionary” activities are not
abandoned.
Marco Antonio Lima Dalmau, a dissident from Holguín, said he had been given more than a
dozen official warnings for “dangerousness” since 2007, all for engaging in peaceful
activities such as marches, and knew he could be arrested at any time.305 Gabriel Díaz
Sánchez, a human rights defender in Bayamo, told Human Rights Watch that security
officials had come to his home several times to tell his family members that he would be
charged with “dangerousness” if he did not give up his activities.306
Dissidents told Human Rights Watch they were also warned for being unemployed, which is
considered a form of “antisocial behavior.” As discussed above, dissidents are
systematically denied jobs because of their political views and then charged with
“dangerousness” for being unemployed. For example, Enyor Díaz Allen, a dissident in
Guantanamo, said he was issued three official warnings from January to March 2009 for
being unemployed. In the second instance, he said, a police captain told him that if he did
not find a job he would be charged with “dangerousness” and sentenced to four years in
prison.307

303

Criminal Procedural Law, art. 243. See “Arbitrary Detention,” in “The Legal Foundation of Repression in Cuba” above.

304

Criminal Code, art. 75(1).

305

Human Rights Watch interview with Marco Antonio Lima Dalmau, Cuba, June 2009.

306

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Gabriel Díaz Sánchez, Cuba, February 25, 2009.

307

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Enyor Díaz Allen, Cuba, March 14, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Journalist Juan Carlos Hernández said he had received roughly 15 citations and warnings
since 2005.
Whenever they feel like it they give you [an official warning]. It’s a
mechanism they have so that at any given moment, for that number of
warnings, they can say, “Enough, we won’t warn you any more, we’ve already
told you several times and now we’re going to do it.” And they take you out of
circulation for at least four years. That’s how it works.308
Official warnings are not the only way dissidents are intimidated. In some instances,
government officials and citizen groups tied to the state threaten dissidents with assault,
rape, and even death.
Rufina Velásquez González said that when she attempted to walk with her parents—Ramón
and Bárbara—from Santiago to Havana in 2007 to raise awareness about human rights
violations and political prisoners, her family was confronted in Holguín and Camagüey by
“rapid response brigades.” The brigade participants threatened them with wooden bats,
stones, and metal rods wrapped in newspaper, telling the marchers that they would be
beaten if they did not turn back. Rufina and her mother were threatened with rape, and
called “sluts” and “whores.” Security officers who were present at several of these
confrontations made no effort to restrain or disarm the brigade participants.309
Four dissidents said government officials explicitly threatened to kill them for their political
activities. Alexander Santos Hernández said a major in the police force told him that the next
time he saw him on his motorcycle, he was going run him over with his car. The officer said
he would use his connections within the government to hide evidence of the killing.310
Three dissidents who told Human Rights Watch that they were constantly being threatened
with imprisonment were indeed arrested and sentenced after speaking with us. Juan Luís
Rodríguez Desdín, Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba, and Enyor Díaz Allen were imprisoned within
months of speaking with Human Rights Watch.

308

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Carlos González Leiva, Cuba, March 13, 2009.

309

Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Bárbara González Cruz, Cuba, April 23, 2009, and Rufina Velásquez
González, Miami, United States, April 28, 2009.
310

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernández, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

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94

Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba, a human rights defender, told Human Rights Watch in March 2009
that he had been given six official warnings for “dangerousness” in the past year. His most
recent one had come for trying to attend a meeting in Guantanamo of the Citizens’
Committee Against Mistreatment (Comité ciudadano contra los malos tratos), an unofficial
group that assembles to share information about violations in the region.311 During his
interview, he said he feared he could be arrested at any time. Ten days later, he was arrested
and taken to prison to complete a sentence dating back to 1994, for which he had been
paroled years earlier.312
Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín—a former political prisoner who had served two years for
“dangerousness”—told Human Rights Watch in March 2009 that he had been subject to
repeated threats by authorities.313 Despite the warnings, Rodríguez did not abandon his
human rights work. In May 2009, he was arrested and sentenced to two more years in prison
for “public disorder.”
Because such warnings and threats often presage real attacks and imprisonment, they are a
source of significant fear and intimidation in the dissident community, and help create an
environment where dissenters worry they could be assaulted or arrested at any moment.

Invasive Surveillance
Dissidents and non-dissidents suspected of “counterrevolutionary” tendencies are
subjected to constant, multifaceted surveillance at the hands of the government and groups
of civilian sympathizers tied to the state. The government uses various methods to monitor
the activities and communications of dissidents, including tapping phones; hacking into
email accounts; planting hidden listening devices; observing, photographing, and filming
meetings of civil society groups; clandestinely searching homes; and assigning security
officers to track their every move.
Surveillance is carried out by security officers and by civilian groups tied to the
government—who may work together or independently. Dozens of dissidents said security
officers were permanently situated outside of their homes and followed them wherever they
went; while “committees for the defense of the revolution”—civilian groups that are located
in every neighborhood and whose function is to protect the revolution against all threats—
311

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba, Cuba, March 13, 2009.

312

CCDHRN, “The Human Rights Situation in Cuba after Three Years of Changes in the Highest Levels of the Government,”
August 10, 2009.

313

Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín, Cuba, March 16 and 19, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

constantly watched their neighbors for suspicious behavior and reported to state security
officials.
Dissidents said that once they had been “marked” as suspicious, they were constantly
watched by these groups. Dissident Rufina Velásquez González said that when she traveled
from her home in Las Tunas to meetings of unofficial groups that sought alternatives to the
government:
The state was always pursuing me wherever I traveled. They knew in which
houses I would stay. That makes one feel watched. I would arrive at a station
to reserve a ticket to go to another province and they would tell me that the
State Security had been asking about me, what I had been doing, where I
was going.314
Roberto Marrero la Rosa said that of the eight households located on his street in Camagüey,
six had members who held official positions in the CDR, ranging from the president to the
head of propaganda, and that all were monitoring his behavior.315 Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba, a
human rights defender in Guantanamo, said he was followed every time he left his home.316
The Cuban government has also used informants posing as dissidents to spy on the
activities of unofficial groups that are critical of the state. In the trials of the 75 dissidents in
2003, state prosecutors relied on the testimony of infiltrators who had posed as opponents
of the government to testify to the counterrevolutionary activities of their former
colleagues.317 Several of the informants had been working clandestinely alongside
dissidents for decades and had earned their utmost confidence. In the trials of ten
dissidents in April 2004, a man who had been posing as a journalist revealed himself as a
government agent and testified against other nonviolent political activists.318

314

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rufina Velásquez González, Miami, United States, April 28, 2009.

315

Human Rights Watch interview with Roberto Marrero la Rosa, Cuba, June 2009.

316

Human Rights Watch telephone interview Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba, Cuba, March 13, 2009.

317

Daniel P. Erikson, The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States, and the Next Revolution (New York: Bloomsbury Press,
2008), pp. 66-67.

318

“Cuba: Release Political Dissidents,” Human Rights Watch news release, April 26, 2004,
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2004/04/26/cuba-release-political-dissidents.

New Castro, Same Cuba

96

Denial of Employment and Financial Hardship
The Cuban constitution gives the government the power to organize, manage, and control all
economic activity, and to allocate workers according to the “requirements of the economy
and society.”319 The state directs virtually all sources of employment, membership in the
lone official union—the Workers’ Central of Cuba (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, or CTC)—
and access to worker’s training programs.320
Government officials routinely use this control to deny employment to those who do not
share its ideological views. Dissenters across Cuba said it was difficult to get a job without
joining the CTC, which some did not wish to join on principle as it is directly controlled by the
government. Dissidents and non-dissidents also told Human Rights Watch that employers
contacted “committees for the defense of the revolution” and police to check on potential
employees’ political views and loyalty to the government before hiring them.
Dissidents reported dozens of cases in which they had been fired because of their opinions
or participation in unauthorized civil society groups. Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz—a former
political prisoner who served two years on a “dangerousness” charge, and who monitors
human rights in Matanzas—said that since his release in August 2008 he had been fired
from one job after another. He said every time employers learn of his political views, he is
fired.321
Víctor Yunier Fernández Martínez—who had also been sentenced to “dangerousness” for
belonging to an unauthoritzed political group in Havana, and was released in February
2009—said he had been fired from two jobs as an auto mechanic because he was seen as a
“counterrevolutionary.”322 Fernández said that when he was fired from the second job, his
boss told him he had no choice: employing a member of the “opposition” created problems
for his business. In the time since, Fernández said, he had been turned away from several
jobs, with bosses explicitly telling him they would not hire him for political reasons.
Dissidents said that the denial of employment places a significant economic strain on their
families. Fernández said that, without a job, he had to rely on the support of his extended
319

Cuban constitution, arts. 16 and 44. As cited in Jesús R. Mercader Uguina, Reality of Labor in Cuba and the Social

Responsibility of Foreign Investors (Valencia: Tirant Lo Blanch, 2006), p. 106.
320

Jesús R. Mercader Uguina, Reality of Labor in Cuba and the Social Responsibility of Foreign Investors (Valencia: Tirant Lo
Blanch, 2006), pp. 110-112.

321

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, February 23, 2009.

322

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Víctor Yunier Fernandez Martinez, Cuba, March 5, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

family to eat. Gertrudis Ojeda Suave—a former political activist imprisoned for
“dangerousness” and single mother of three children—said that being labeled a dissident
keeps her from finding a job. When she applied for a job cleaning floors at a state hospital,
she was told she was not trustworthy because of her political views. Without a regular
source of income, she said, she regularly has to put her three children to bed without
dinner.323
As seen above, the government routinely uses unemployment as justification for sentencing
dissidents under the social “dangerousness” provision—making the denial of work not only
harmful to families, but dangerous as well.

Fines
In addition to effectively blacklisting dissidents, the government imposes further financial
hardship on them by routinely meting out heavy fines. Dissidents said they were fined for
exercising basic civil and political rights, as well as for setting up their own small businesses
without government authorization.
The Cuban Criminal Code assigns a range of possible fines for specific violations, giving
judges a great deal of discretion to set the amount.324 Cuban law states that judges should
take into account the earning potential of the offender when setting an amount, “taking care
not to affect, as much as possible, the portion of his/her resources set aside for his/her own
needs and the needs of his/her dependents.”325 Those who cannot pay fines are to be
locked up for a period of time that will allow them to repay their debt, the law says.326
However, the fines assigned to dissidents are often so huge that, when repaying them, they
find it difficult to afford basic necessities. René Velásquez Gonzales said he was fined 750
pesos for selling pizza and soda without a permit in Las Tunas—more than two times his
monthly wage. He said he had to work three jobs to pay the fine in time and avoid going to
prison, leaving only a few hours a night to sleep.327 Ramona Sánchez Ramírez said that in the

323

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Gertrudis Ojeda Suave, Cuba, March 31, 2009.

324

Fines (multas) for individual violations are generally given a range in shares (cuotas) that may be assigned. Shares are the
unit of fines, and they may range from 50 cents to 20 pesos. It is up to the tribunal to determine the number of shares and the
share value for each fine. For example, resistance (resistencia) may carry a fine of 100 to 300 shares. That means the fine
assigned could range from 50 pesos to 6,000 pesos, depending on the determination of the judge.
325

Criminal Code, art. 35(4).

326

Ibid., art. 35(5).

327

Human Rights Watch interview with René Velásquez Gonzáles, Cuba, June 2009.

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aftermath of the hurricanes of 2008, several dissidents in Guantanamo were singled out for
“hoarding” (acaparamiento), because they possessed basic foodstuffs such as tomatoes or
cabbage.328 She said they were fined between 500 and 3,000 pesos—the latter nearly a
year’s wages.

Reprisals against Families
The Cuban government punishes entire families for the dissenting activities of one of their
members. Family members of political prisoners and dissidents endure threats, loss of work,
denial of basic social services, and public humiliation, among other forms of discrimination
and abuse.
Shortly after her husband was imprisoned in 2003 for working as an independent journalist,
Rebeca Rodríguez Souto was expelled from an adult education center where she had been
taking classes. When she asked a school administrator why, he said that government
officials had ordered her expulsion because she was the wife of a “mercenary,” and because
she had “ideas against the government.”329 Rodríguez said she had never expressed her
political views at school.
Dissidents in Sancti Spíritus, Matanzas, Guantanamo, and Holguín said their children were
expelled from school or humiliated by teachers because of their parents’ activities or
political opinions. According to Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, his daughter was kicked out of
school with no explanation after he was imprisoned for “dangerousness” in 2008.330
Ramona Sánchez Ramírez said her daughter was barred from continuing her university
studies and her grandson was mocked by his teacher in front of his entire class as a result of
Sánchez’s human rights work.331
Dozens of family members of political prisoners and dissidents said they had been fired
from their jobs or denied work because of their relation to individuals branded as
“counterrevolutionaries.” After dissident Yordis García Fournier was sentenced for contempt
(desacato) in September 2008, three of his siblings were fired from their jobs. Two of them
were explicitly told they were being punished because of their relation to a political
328

Hoarding, an offense that carries a penalty of three months to a year in prison, a fine of 300 shares, or both—may be
applied to anyone in possession of an amount of a product, “unjustifiably exceeding the requirements for his/her normal
necessities,” a vague and ill-defined quantity. Criminal Code, art. 230.

329

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rebeca Rodríguez Souto, Cuba, February 10, 2009.

330

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, February 23, 2009.

331

Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Ramona Sánchez Ramírez, Cuba, March 13 and 14, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

prisoner.332 As has been noted elsewhere, the loss of income places significant financial
strain on families, and leaves the jobless at risk of being charged with “dangerousness.”

Travel Restrictions
The Cuban government also discriminates against dissidents in the awarding of travel visas.
The Cuban government forbids the country's citizens from leaving or returning to Cuba
without first obtaining official permission. Unauthorized travel can result in criminal
prosecution. As Human Rights Watch found in its report, Families Torn Apart: The High Cost
of US and Cuban Travel Restrictions, these travel restrictions provide the Cuban government
with a powerful tool for punishing defectors and silencing critics.333
In May 2008 blogger Yoani Sánchez was awarded a Spanish journalism prize. The
government initially issued an exit visa to Sánchez, but before she was scheduled to leave
the visa was put on hold without explanation, and she was unable to accept the award in
person.334 In October 2009, Sánchez was again denied permission to leave the country to
accept a different award from Columbia University in New York.335 In February 2008, four
political prisoners who had been arrested in the 2003 crackdown were released on the
condition that they leave immediately for Spain. Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos—one of the four
prisoners released—said they were explicitly told that in exchange for their freedom they
would never be allowed to return to Cuba.336
On November 21, 2008, the rapper Bian Oscar Rodríguez Galá—a member of the group los
Aldeanos (the Villagers), whose lyrics have been overtly critical of the Castro government—
was denied permission to leave Cuba for the second consecutive year to participate in an
annual international music competition. Rodríguez, who had qualified by winning a rap

332

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Niover García Fournier, the brother of Yordis, Cuba, March 14, 2009.

333

Human Rights Watch, Families Torn Apart: The High Cost of U.S. and Cuban Travel Restrictions, October 18, 2005,
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/10/18/families-torn-apart..
334

Yoani Sánchez, “No, ‘for the moment,’” post to “Generation Y” (Generación Y), (blog), May 30, 2008,
http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/?p=157 and http://desdecuba.com/generaciony/wpcontent/uploads/2008/05/negativa_viaje.pdf (accessed August 11, 2009).

335

Larry Rohter, “Yoani Sánchez: Virtually Outspoken in Cuba,” New York Times, October 17, 2009; Yoani Sánchez, “Speaking
my mind,” post to “Generation Y” (Generación Y), (blog), October 17, 2009, http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/?p=1058
(accessed October 18, 2009).
336

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos, Miami, United States, April 14, 2009.

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competition in Cuba, was refused an exit visa despite having provided all of the required
documents.337
Juan Juan Almeida García has been denied the right to leave Cuba to receive medical
treatment for a rare degenerative illness since 2003.338 Forty-four-year-old Almeida, who
suffers from Ankylosing Spondylitis, was allowed to travel to Belgium in the nineties to
receive treatment, which is not available in Cuba. He has applied several times per year for
permission to leave Cuba to be treated by doctors abroad, but all of his requests have been
denied without explanation. On his most recent visit to an immigration office, an officer told
him that the refusal of permission in his case came from the “high command” of the
government. As a result of his lack of treatment for more than six years, Almeida’s daughter
told Human Rights Watch, his health has declined considerably. He has to sleep sitting in a
chair, because the pain in his joints and bones prevents him from sleeping lying down, and
he cannot walk without assistance. His daughter arranged for free medical treatment in
August 2009 in California, but Almeida was again denied an exit visa.339
The government has also clamped down on the movement of citizens within Cuba by more
aggressively enforcing a 1997 law known as Decree 217. Designed to limit migration to
Havana, the decree requires Cubans to obtain government permission before moving to the
country's capital.340 According to one Cuban official, the police forcibly removed people from
Havana in approximately 20,000 instances from 2006 to August 2008.341 Dissidents said
they were routinely detained arbitrarily or prohibited from leaving their home province,
particularly in advance of gatherings of unauthorized civil society groups distrusted by the
government.

337

“B Denied His Exit Visa for the International Competition of the ‘Battle of the Roosters’ hosted by Red Bull,” Los Aldeanos,
press announcement, November 21, 2008, http://losaldeanos.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/el-b-negado-su-permiso-desalida-para-la-competencia-internacional-de-“la-batalla-de-los-gallos”-de-red-bull/, (accessed September 15, 2009).
338

Almieda is the son of the Cuban revolutionary commander and Vice President Juan Almeida Bosque, who died on
September 11, 2009.

339

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Indira Quesada, daughter of Juan Juan Almeida García, Miami, United States,
on October 15, 2009.
340

Decreto Ley de Regulaciones Migratorias Internas para Ciudad de la Habana (Decree on Internal Migratory Regulations for
the City of Havana), Gaceta Oficial de la República de Cuba, No. 217, 1997,
http://www.gacetaoficial.cu/html/regulacionesmigratoriasparaC.H.html (accessed April 23, 2009).
341

Yallin Orta and Dora Pérez, “La Habana sumergida,” Juventud Rebelde, August 3, 2008,
http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/cuba/2008-08-03/la-habana-sumergida/ (accessed September 7, 2008).

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IX. State of Fear
The repressive practices of the Raúl Castro government documented in this report have
generated a climate of fear that has a profound impact on dissidents and Cuban society as a
whole. Fear of repression shapes behavior, pressuring Cubans to participate in progovernment activities and discouraging them from voicing dissent or participating in
activities that may be perceived as “counterrevolutionary.” Individuals who express
unpopular political views live in constant fear of being harassed, beaten, or arrested.
The Cuban government’s widespread use of surveillance and infiltrators creates an
atmosphere where Cubans feel they are constantly being watched. Surveillance is not only a
source of anxiety in itself, but it also fosters distrust and suspicion within the dissident
community. This distrust extends to the laws and institutions entrusted with protecting
Cubans’ rights. Dissidents have no confidence in the ability of the courts to give them a fair
trial.
Fear is a central part of the Cuban government’s strategy of isolation, which pressures
friends and family members to sever ties with dissidents. This isolation, together with other
forms of harassment, takes a significant emotional and psychological toll on dissidents and
their families. It may lead to depression or lasting psychological problems.

Self-Censorship and Coerced Allegiance
Fear pressures individuals to participate in pro-government activities and show their
allegiance to the party. Having a job, belonging to the local “committee in defense of the
revolution” and the state-sponsored union, attending pro-government rallies—all are seen
as ways of proving one’s loyalty to the “revolutionary” project. To not participate is to mark
oneself as suspicious, or even dangerous.
In the words of human rights advocate Ramona Sánchez Ramírez, “Everything works through
fear.... People know they have to go to revolutionary activities, because if not, they’re
looking for trouble.”342 “Gerardo Domínguez,” a youth in Havana, told Human Rights Watch
that his local committee for the defense of the revolution took attendance at meetings and

342

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ramona Sánchez Ramírez, Cuba, March 14, 2009.

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government-sponsored events, and passed along the names of those who did not attend to
security officials.343
Fear also discourages individuals from voicing dissent or from participating in any activity
that may be perceived as “counterrevolutionary.” Non-dissidents and dissidents alike
repeatedly said that any form of dissent could lead to repression—be it an arrest, a beating,
imprisonment, or some other measure. As former political prisoner and leader of an
unauthorized labor union Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos described the system:
In Cuba everyone has a file. If you are not in line with the system or are
unwilling to carry out the tasks they assign, if you do not want to adopt that
attitude or be part of the party, or of the committee—then you’re
marginalized.... Those are the ones regarded as likely to commit crimes. In
Cuba, one has to be a revolutionary for everything.344
Human rights defender Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba told Human Rights Watch, “We live 24 hours
a day ready to be arrested at any moment.... Sometimes they enforce [the punishment] at
this moment, sometimes later, but they always enforce it when they see fit.”345 Alexander
Santos Hernández described the threat of repression as ever present, calling Cuba “a system
already designed to prosecute you.” He said this was especially true with the
“dangerousness” provision, which he described as, “a law that’s prepared so they can
accuse you [of breaking it] at any moment. It’s like a trap for a mouse with its mouth open:
they just have to wave it in front of you and in just one day you’re in prison.”346 Of the
“dangerousness” law, Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz said, “They’re always instilling fear with this
law. Every opponent has been suppressed by fear.”347
Several individuals said they had deliberately scaled back their participation in activities
that could be considered critical of the government to avoid being arrested. William Reyes
Mir used to be an active member of a small, unofficial political group that aims to make
Cuba into a multiparty system. But he said that since completing two years of forced labor
for “dangerousness,” he had not participated in any of the organization’s activities, out of

343

Human Rights Watch interview with “Gerardo Domínguez” Cuba, July 2009.

344

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos, Miami, United States, April 14, 2009.

345

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba, Cuba, March 13, 2009.

346

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernández, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

347

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, March 19, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

fear of being arrested.348 During interviews Human Rights Watch conducted in Cuba,
interviewees said that even speaking to outsiders was likely to arouse the suspicion of the
neighborhood “revolutionary” committee, and that talking about human rights could lead to
their imprisonment.
Local Cuban blogs provide a window into the way fear permeates Cuban society on the
whole. In his blog “From Here,” former journalist-turned-blogger Reinaldo Escobar wrote:
You can be certain that the vast majority of the people living in Cuba have
never felt repression by the government on their own flesh. A few have been
taken to Villa Marista [prison], and many have even been visited [by
authorities] and warned not to misbehave. Most people have not been
dismissed from their jobs or expelled from school because of their political
views....
Why then does an index finger cross the lips, eyes widen, or a look of horror
appear on the faces of my friends when at their houses I commit the
indiscretion of making a political comment within earshot of the
neighbors? We already know where those who fight in the face of fear are ...
and the paralyzed are all around us, waiting to see what the brave ones do.349
Yoani Sánchez, who writes the blog “Generation Y,” wrote:
Soon, very soon— [the neighbors] warn me—I could hear a knock at my door
very early one morning. In anticipation of this, I would like to point out that I
do not keep weapons under the bed. However, I have committed an unfailing
and heinous offence: I have believed myself to be free....
But don’t fool yourself; I’m not entirely innocent. I carry with me a mountain
of misdeeds; I have routinely bought on the black market, I have commented
in a low voice—and in critical terms—about those who govern us, I have
nicknamed politicians and joined in the pessimism. To top it off, I have
committed the abominable offense of believing in a future without “them”
and in a version of history different from that which they have taught me. I
348

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with William Reyes Mir, Cuba, March 31, 2009.

349

Reinaldo Escobar. “A Nation Difficult to Govern,” post to “From Here” (Desde Aquí ), (blog), January 26, 2008,
http://vocescubanas.com/desdeaqui/2008/01/26/el-mismo-viejo-miedo/, (accessed September 4, 2009)

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repeated the slogans without conviction, washed the dirty laundry in full
view and—the greatest transgression—I have joined words and phrases
together without permission.350
Although some point to the emergence of such blogs as proof that Raúl Castro’s government
tolerates dissent, many of the blogs are blocked within Cuba. Moreover, access to the
internet is limited to a few government-run centers and tourist hotels, where it costs
approximately US$5 per hour, or one-third of Cubans’ monthly wages. Private internet
connections require special permission from the government, and are rarely granted.
As a result, bloggers often write their posts on home computers, save them on memory
sticks, and upload them through illegal connections. Ironically, bloggers rarely have the
opportunity to see their own blogs. In an August 2009 post, blogger Luis Felipe Rojas wrote:
“I write without being able to answer those who support or rebut my poor arguments. Never
have I been able to see this blog online.”351 Furthermore, as novelist Ángel Santiesteben
wrote on his blog, individuals who write critically risk “the loss of friends, some of whom
distance themselves out of fear of repression,” as well as threats and physical attacks by
government officials.352 Blogger Rojas was the subject of an arbitrary arrest and interrogation
because of his writing.353

Surveillance and Suspicion
Constant government surveillance makes dissidents feel as though their every move is being
watched, while the use of infiltrators fosters distrust and suspicion among groups.
Dissidents repeatedly said that their phones were tapped and their conversations recorded
by security officers, citing as evidence the fact that authorities later repeated back to them
parts of phone conversations or people with whom they had spoken. Víctor Yunier
Fernández Martínez told Human Rights Watch that he could be punished for saying anything
critical about the government over the phone:
350

Yoani Sánchez. “Denunciation, Plea, Confession.” post to “Generation Y” (Generación Y ), (blog), May 16, 2008,
http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/?p=265, (accessed September 4, 2009).
351

Luis Felipe Rojas. “My drunkenness” post to “Animal of the Sewers” (Animal de Alcantarilla), (blog), August 14, 2009,
http://www.cubaencuentro.com/luis-felipe-rojas/blogs/animal-de-alcantarilla/mea-curda (accessed October 10, 2009).

352

Ángel Santiesteben, “The Fourth Circle,” from “The Children Who Nobody Wanted” (Los hijos que nadie quiso), (blog),
October 9, 2009, http://www.cubaencuentro.com/angel-santiesteban/blogs/los-hijos-que-nadie-quiso/el-cuarto-circulo
(accessed October 12, 2009).

353

Luis Felipe Rojas. “An Interrogation (I),” post to “Animal of the Sewers” (Animal de Alcantarilla), (blog), September 5,
2009, http://www.cubaencuentro.com/luis-felipe-rojas/blogs/animal-de-alcantarilla/un-interrogatorio-i (accessed October
10, 2009).

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

These words I'm saying to you could cost me my life. They may lead to my
summoning. They could come here to look for me right now in a car, because
here all the phone lines are governmental, they’re bugged.354
The day after a telephone interview with Human Rights Watch, dissident Eduardo Pacheco
Ortíz said he was arrested while walking down the street. In a later call, Pacheco said, “They
did not tell me anything about the call because they don’t want to give themselves away. But
I know that it is because of the call.”355
Dozens of times during Human Rights Watch’s phone interviews with dissidents, calls were
abruptly cut off, and in several cases dissidents’ phone lines were suspended for hours or
days after interviews. Dissidents attributed these phenomena to interference by censors.
Dissidents said government officials deliberately revealed their surveillance capabilities as a
form of intimidation. Marco Antonio Lima Dalmau said that during previous interrogations
government officials had mentioned information that they would have known only if they
had planted microphones in his home.356 “Joaquín Durán,” a member of the clergy, said that
when he was brought in for questioning by State Security, officers ran down a list of every
political activity and gathering that he had attended in recent months.357
Dissidents told Human Rights Watch that the government used infiltrators to collect
information. As evidence, they pointed to preemptive arrests before planned gatherings and
security officers’ knowledge of issues discussed in small groups. René Velásquez
González—the son of a political prisoner who has attended meetings of unauthorized
political groups—said that, even when among dissidents, he was very careful when voicing
criticism of the government, because there was no way of being sure that everyone was
trustworthy.358

Distrust of the Courts
Dissidents say that Cuba’s judicial system works hand in glove with security forces to
repress dissent. In the words of dissident Rufina Velásquez González, “In Cuba, judges and

354

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with VíctorYúnier Fernández Martínez, Cuba, March 5, 2009.

355

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, March 19, 2009.

356

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Marco Antonio Lima Dalmau, Cuba, June 28, 2009.

357

Human Rights Watch interview with “Joaquín Durán,” Cuba,July 2009. Durán’s name has been changed for his protection.

358

Human Rights Watch interview with René Velásquez Gonzáles, Cuba, June 2009.

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juries are basically another arm of the state security forces. They are there so that the laws of
the revolution are followed, not justice and legal parameters.”359
Dissidents routinely told Human Rights Watch that they had no faith in the ability of the
courts to reach just decisions or fulfill their duty to safeguard fundamental freedoms.
Dissidents called their trials “theatre” and “a show,” and said their sentences were “prewritten” and “pre-decided.” According to Enyor Díaz Allen, “In Cuba, there are no rights.
When they want, they put you in prison.”360 Other dissidents said the legal system was used
to shield government officials who committed abuses. Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, a
dissident who suffered numerous beatings at the hands of security officers, said, “The
authorities are authorized with impunity. Whether they break the law or not—nothing
happens to them.”361
René Gómez Manzano described the way the various branches of the Cuban government
work in concert to repress dissent:
This works like a sugar processing factory, where first you put in the cane,
then it goes through a mill, and the process continues until the bag of sugar
comes out the other end. The police grab you and go to the district attorney
saying, “Look, we detained this individual.” Then the district attorney
accuses you. And if the district attorney accuses you then the initial court
immediately punishes you. You appeal and when it reaches the superior
court, the superior court ratifies the action and that’s it. A reversal of the
initial court’s decision is practically unthinkable. There’s no other way to do
things there.362
Former political prisoners and family members of current prisoners said courtrooms were
filled with uniformed and plainclothes officers and members of “rapid response brigades,”
creating a threatening atmosphere. “The room was full of armed men,” said Yaraí Reyes
Marín, the wife of journalist and political prisoner Normando Hernández González,
describing his show trial in 2003. She said the armed officers, who greatly outnumbered
Hernández’s immediate family, made her feel frightened and isolated.363
359

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rufina Velásquez González, Miami, United States, April 28, 2009.

360

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Enyor Díaz Allen, Cuba, March 14, 2009.

361

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, Cuba, March 18, 2009.

362

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with René Gómez Manzano, Cuba, May 5, 2009.

363

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Yaraí Reyes Marin, Cuba, February 12, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

Dissidents’ lack of faith in the independence of the courts has real consequences for their
conduct in legal proceedings. As seen above, dissidents repeatedly choose not to appeal
their decisions or even contest the charges against them because of the perception that any
challenge—no matter how well-founded—would result in a harsher sentence.
For example, William Reyes Mir did not appeal his sentence of two years’ forced labor for
“dangerousness,” despite the fact that the state prosecutor falsified charges against him.
He told Human Rights Watch, “Here people almost never appeal because appeals are
dangerous. [The lawyers] threaten that if you appeal, it could end up badly.... People appeal
and end up with harsher sentences.”364

Emotional and Psychological Impact
Everyday acts of repression, inhuman imprisonment, and fear take a significant emotional
and psychological toll on dissidents. Former political prisoner Víctor Yunier Fernández
Martínez told Human Rights Watch that since his release from jail in February 2009, he was
afraid to leave his home:
At this moment I feel tense, I feel stressed, because they’ve already
condemned me.... I'm not even going out, I'm here in my house. I'm afraid of
walking, I'm afraid they’ll take me back to prison. I fear it because I already
suffered, my whole family suffered. I fear for what might happen to me.365
The emotional and psychological repercussions often extend to the families of dissidents.
Journalist Juan Carlos Hernández said that, as a result of his frequent arrests, his wife began
to suffer anxiety attacks and chronic nightmares about him being arrested. As a result, she
had to seek psychiatric treatment. He described the atmosphere produced by this
intimidation:
Yes, I'm afraid. Not just me—my family. We live in constant confinement. If
they knock on the door, we don’t want to know who it is, our hearts pound so
hard it feels like they’ll burst.... When you analyze this series of actions, they
practically have it designed to throw your nerves out of balance.366

364

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with William Reyes Mir, Cuba, March 31, 2009.

365

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with VíctorYúnier Fernández Martínez, Cuba, March 5, 2009.

366

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Carlos Hernández Cuba, April 28, 2009.

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Wives and children of political prisoners said they experienced periods of depression as a
result of their husbands’ or fathers’ confinement. When her husband was charged with
“dangerousness” in January 2007, Bárbara González Cruz was unable to leave her bed for
several weeks, her son said. She stopped eating and would not speak to anyone.367
Rebeca Rodríguez Souto’s son was a teenager when his father—journalist Dr. Alfredo
Pulido—was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2003. Rodríguez Souto said that after his
father’s detention, his behavior changed dramatically. He became reserved, did not want to
go to school, and withdrew into isolation. She said she regularly found him taking his
father’s clothes out and laying them on his bed, where he would stare at them.368
Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya said public acts of repudiation, which had been repeatedly
staged outside of his home, had terrified his four children. He said they had suffered lasting
trauma from the siege of their homes—replete with menacing chants, insults, stone-throwing,
and threats—telling Human Rights Watch: “[The acts] stay etched in their minds for a lifetime.
They traumatize them and they will carry this psychological burden. From this horror, they
get frightened by anything, and don’t allow anyone to enter the house.”369
Former political prisoners described lasting pain from the cruel, inhuman, and degrading
conditions they endured in Cuban prisons. Manuel Vázquez Portal, who was released in
2004, was subjected to sustained periods of solitary confinement, and engaged in hunger
strikes to call attention to the abysmal conditions in which he and other prisoners were held.
He said that five years after his release he continued to suffer “periods of irritability and
depression,” as well as recurrent nightmares about solitary confinement, for which he has
sought psychological treatment.370 Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos, a political prisoner who was
released in February 2008, said:
I had never suffered from depression, and now every once in a while it
happens to me. Sometimes I wake up very early in the morning and think that
I'm still in prison. No one is spared. One lives so much horror—it’s such a
difficult experience, being isolated—especially when one hasn’t done
anything.371
367

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with René Gómez Manzano, Cuba, May 5, 2009.

368

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rebeca Rodríguez Souto, Cuba, February 10, 2009.

369

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya, Cuba, February 12, 2009.

370

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Manuel Vázquez Portal, Miami, United States, February 9, 2009.

371

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Pedro Pablo Álvarez Ramos, Miami, United States, April 14, 2009.

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

A Strategy of Isolation
Fear is a critical component in the government’s strategy to isolate dissidents from their
neighbors, coworkers, friends, and loved ones. Authorities use what clergy member
“Enrique Jiménez” described as a system of “rewards and punishments” to cut off those it
sees as its enemies: ongoing contact with those labeled “counterrevolutionary” may lead to
punishment, while informing on them or isolating them is rewarded. 372
In eight cases, dissidents said that authorities pressured their family members and friends
to sever ties with them. Dissident Alexander Santos Hernández, from Holguín, said that his
childhood friend—a woman who has never been involved in dissident activities—was told by
authorities that her daughter would be expelled from school if she maintained her friendship
with Santos.373
Sometimes, pressure by government officials can cause family members to end
relationships with dissidents. Enyor Díaz Allen, a dissident in Guantanamo, said that his
mother had stopped talking to him because of pressure from police.374 Digzan Saavedra Prat,
a dissident from Holguín and former political prisoner, said his brother cut off all contact
with him when authorities warned him that continued contact with his “mercenary” brother
would cost him his job.375
Roberto Marrero la Rosa, a human rights advocate in Camagüey, has a daughter-in-law who
used to work in the public prosecutor’s office. According to Marrero, government officials
approached her and said that if she wanted to keep her job, she would have to divorce her
husband (Marrero’s son) and put their child up for adoption. When she refused, she was
fired, Marrero said.376
Former political prisoner Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz described the effect of such isolation on his
family’s social network in Matanzas:

372

Human Rights Watch interview with “Enrique Jiménez,” Cuba, July 2009. Jiménez’s name has been changed for his
protection.
373

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Alexander Santos Hernández, Cuba, March 16, 2009.

374

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Enyor Díaz Allen, Cuba, March 14, 2009.

375

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Digzan Saavedra Prat, Cuba, March 17, 2009.

376

Human Rights Watch interview with Roberto Marrero la Rosa and his wife, Marlenes Bermudez Sardinas, Cuba, June 2009.
His daughter-in-law has since been unable to find work, despite having applied for several jobs. She has repeatedly been told
that she was not suitable (idónea).

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110

In the city, no one is allowed to talk to me. People who come to my house are
immediately called by state security and reprimanded. Then these people—
for fear of losing their jobs, for fear that [the authorities] will take it out on
someone in their family—simply stop talking to me.377
Rufina Velásquez Gonzales—daughter of political prisoner Ramón Velásquez Toranzo—said
security officers approached several of her friends and asked them to report secretly on her
activities.378 She said the harassment she received in public was a major factor in her
decision to leave Cuba for the United States—a decision made harder by the knowledge she
was leaving a father in prison and a brother and mother who had been shunned by much of
their community.
Rufina’s brother, René Velásquez Gonzales, who remained in Las Tunas with his mother, told
Human Rights Watch that authorities questioned everyone who spent time with him, asking
why they were spending time with a known “worm.” One day, after having a soda with a
friend, security officers accused Velásquez of trying to indoctrinate the friend with
“counterrevolutionary ideas.” Following the incident, Velásquez decided to stop hanging
around with his closest friends to avoid getting them in trouble. His co-workers stopped
talking to him, and his girlfriend left him. He described the feeling of isolation as
asphyxiating. “It’s like having someone plant a boot right in the middle of my chest, and
applying so much pressure I can hardly breathe. Just when I think I am going to suffocate, a
little air makes it through. And then the pressure is back again.”379

377

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Eduardo Pacheco Ortíz, Cuba, March 19, 2009.

378

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Rufina Velásquez González, Miami, United States, April 28, 2009.

379

Human Rights Watch interview with René Velásquez Gonzáles, Cuba, June 27, 2009.

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Acknowledgements
This report was researched and written by Nik Steinberg, researcher in Human Rights
Watch’s Americas Division. Daniel Wilkinson, deputy director of the Americas Division, Joe
Saunders, deputy program director, Aisling Reidy, senior legal advisor, José Miguel Vivanco,
director of the Americas Division, and Rebecca Schleiffer, advocacy director of the Health
and Human Rights Division edited the report. Americas Division associates Paola Adriazola,
Eva Fortes, and Kavita Shah contributed to logistics, production, and translation. Americas
Division interns Natalia Escruceria, Cesar Francia, Sergio Garciduenas-Sease, Cecilia Garza,
Viviana Gomez, Carly Graber, Hannah Kim, Alexandra de Mesones, Alana Roth, Max
Schoening, Alison Silveira, and Sophia Veltfort provided invaluable research support.
Human Rights Watch is deeply grateful to the Cubans who shared their testimonies with us.
As this report documents, Cubans take a considerable risk in discussing human rights with
outside organizations. Nevertheless, scores of Cubans agreed to speak with us about the
repression they endured. Three of those individuals—Rodolfo Bartelemí Coba, Enyor Díaz
Allen, and Juan Luís Rodríguez Desdín—were arrested after speaking with us. Others were
harassed, threatened, or detained. Human Rights Watch also thanks the individuals who
provided guidance in the research and planning of the fact-finding mission to Cuba, who
have asked not to be named so as not to compromise their access to the island.

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112

Appendix 1: List of the 53 Political Prisoners Arrested in the
2003 Crackdown Who Remain in Prison under Raúl Castro
Name

Sentence

1. Alexis Rodríguez Fernández
2. Alfredo Felipe Fuentes
3. Alfredo Manuel Pulido López
4. Alfredo Rodolfo Domínguez Batista
5. Ángel Juan Moya Acosta
6. Antonio Augusto Villareal Acosta
7. Antonio Ramón Díaz Sánchez
8. Ariel Sigler Amaya
9. Arnaldo Ramos Lauzerique
10. Arturo Pérez de Alejo Rodríguez
11. Blas Giraldo Reyes Rodríguez
12. Claro Sánchez Altarriba
13. Diosdado González Marrero
14. Eduardo Díaz Fleitas
15. Efrén Fernández Fernández
16. Fabio Prieto Llorente
17. Félix Navarro Rodríguez
18. Fidel Suárez Cruz
19. Guido Sigler Amaya
20. Héctor Fernando Maseda Gutierrez
21. Héctor Raúl Valle Hernández
22. Horacio Julio Piña Borrego
23. Iván Hernández Carrillo
24. Jesús Miguel Mustafa Felipe
25. Jorge Luis González Tanquero
26. José Daniel Ferrer García
27. José Luis García Paneque
28. José Miguel Martínez Hernández
29. José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández
30. Juan Adolfo Fernández Sainz
31. Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta
32. Julio César Gálvez Rodríguez

15 years
26 years
14 years
14 years
20 years
15 years
20 years
20 years
18 years
20 years
25 years
15 years
20 years
21 years
12 years
20 years
25 years
20 years
20 years
20 years
12 years
20 years
25 years
25 years
20 years
25 years
24 years
13 years
16 years
15 years
20 years
15 years

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Human Rights Watch | November 2009

33. Leonel Grave de Peralta Almenares
34. Léster González Pentón
35. Librado Ricardo Linares García
36. Luis Enrique Ferrer García
37. Luis Milán Fernández
38. Manuel Ubals González
39. Marcelo Cano Rodríguez
40. Miguel Galván Gutierrez
41. Mijail Barzaga Lugo
42. Nelson Moliné Espino
43. Normando Hernández González
44. Omar Moisés Ruiz Hernández
45. Omar Rodríguez Saludes
46. Oscar Elías Biscet González
47. Pablo Pacheco Avila
48. Pedro Argüelles Morán
49. Próspero Gaínza Agüero
50. Regis Iglesias Ramírez
51. Ricardo Severino Gonzales Alfonso
52. Ricardo Silva Gual
53. Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona

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114

20 years
20 years
20 years
28 years
13 years
20 years
18 years
26 years
15 years
20 years
25 years
18 years
27 years
25 years
20 years
20 years
25 years
18 years
20 years
10 years
26 years

Appendix 2: Human Rights Watch Letters to the Cuban Government
Requesting Meetings and Permission to Visit Cuba
Human Rights Watch sent four letters to then Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations,
Abelardo Moreno Fernández, and the head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington,
D.C., Jorge Bolaños Suarez.
The letters requested an audience with Ambassadors Moreno and Bolaños to discuss human
rights issues in Cuba and asked for permission for Human Rights Watch to conduct a factfinding mission to Cuba.
The requests were sent via fax to both officials on March 30, April 7, April 28, and July 15,
2009. The receipt of these faxes was confirmed through follow-up telephone calls by Human
Rights Watch to the Cuban Mission to the UN and the Cuban Interests Section.
Human Rights Watch received no response from the Cuban government to any of our
requests, two of which have been reproduced below, both in the original Spanish and
translated into English.

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New Castro, Same Cuba

116

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New Castro, Same Cuba

118

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Appendix 3: The “Dangerousness” Law, Excerpt from the
Cuban Criminal Code380
TITLE XI
THE STATE OF DANGEROUSNESS AND SECURITY MEASURES

Chapter 1
The State of Dangerousness
Article 72. A state of dangerousness is considered to be the special propensity of a person
to commit crimes, as demonstrated by conduct observed in manifest contradiction to the
norms of socialist morality.
Article 73.
1. The state of dangerousness is seen when any of the following hazardous indicators occur
concurrently in the individual:
a) habitual drunkenness and dipsomania;
b) drug addiction;
c) antisocial behavior
2. A person is considered to be in a state of dangerousness due to antisocial behavior if the
person routinely breaks the rules of social coexistence by committing acts of violence, or by
other provocative acts, violates the rights of others or by his or her general behavior
weakens the rules of coexistence or disturbs the order of the community or lives, like a
social parasite, off the work of others or exploits or practices socially reprehensible vices.
Article 74. Mentally ill persons and persons of delayed mental development are also
considered to be in a state of dangerousness, if, because of [their mental condition], they do
not have the ability to comprehend the scope of their actions nor to control their conduct,
provided that these represent a threat to the security of others or to the social order.

380

The translation of this law into English was carried out by Human Rights Watch.

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Chapter 2
The Official Warning
Article 75.
1. Anyone who, without falling under [the categories of] any of the states of dangerousness
referred to in Article 73, by his or her ties or relations with persons who are potentially
dangerous to society, to other individuals and to the social, economic and political order of
the socialist state, may as a result develop a propensity to commit crime, will be given a
warning by the competent police authority, to prevent the individual from pursuing socially
dangerous or criminal activities.
2. The warning will be executed, in any case, by means of a written document that states the
causes that establish the [state of dangerousness] and the information provided by the
warned person, signed by the latter and by the acting [officer].

Chapter 3
Security Measures
FIRST SECTION: General Regulations
Article 76.
1. Security measures can be ordered to prevent the commission of crimes or as a result of
their having been committed. In the first case they are called pre-criminal security measures;
and in the second, post-criminal security measures.
2. Security measures are applied when the individual displays any of the dangerousness
indicators referred to in Articles 73 and 74.
Article 77.
1. Post-criminal security measures, as a general rule, are applied after the termination of the
imposed sanction.
2. If during the implementation of a security measure applied to a convicted person, a
penalty of imprisonment is imposed on said person, the execution of the security measure
will be suspended, to be renewed once the penalty has been served.
3. If, in the case mentioned in the previous section, the sanctioned person is conditionally
released, the safety measure will be terminated on completion of probation as long as the
probation has not been revoked.

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SECOND SECTION: Pre-criminal Security Measures
Article 78. Once a person has been declared to be in a state of dangerousness by the
corresponding process, the most adequate of the following pre-criminal security measures
may be applied:
a) therapeutic;
b) re-educational;
c) oversight by the agencies of the National Revolutionary Police.
Article 79.
1. The therapeutic measures are:
a) internment in a welfare, psychiatric or detoxification institution;
b) appointment to specialized educational center, with or without internment;
c) outside medical treatment.
2. The therapeutic measures are applied to mentally ill persons and persons of delayed
mental development in a state of dangerousness, to dipsomaniacs and to drug addicts.
3. The implementation of these measures shall last until the state of dangerousness
disappears in the individual.
Article 80.
1. The re-educational measures are:
a) internment in a specialized institution for work or study;
b) surrender to a labor collective, for the control and orientation of the conduct of an
individual in a state of dangerousness.
2. Re-educational measures are applied to antisocial individuals
3. The term of these measures is at least one year and at most four years.
Article 81.
1. The monitoring by agencies of the National Revolutionary Police consists of orientation
and control of the conduct of an individual in a state of dangerousness by officials of these
agencies.
2. This measure is applicable to dipsomaniacs, drug addicts and
antisocial individuals.
3. The term of these measures is at least one year and at most four years.

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Article 82. The court may impose the appropriate type of pre-criminal security measure
according to its respective degree, and will establish its extension within the set limits of
each case, choosing those which are of detentive or not detentive character, depending on
the severity of the individual’s state of dangerousness and the possibilities for his or her
rehabilitation.
Article 83. The court, at any time during the execution of the pre-criminal security measure
may change its category or duration, or suspend it at the request of the agency in charge of
its implementation or by the court’s discretion. In the latter case, the court will ask for the
executing agency’s report.
Article 84. The court will inform the prevention agencies of the National Revolutionary Police
of the decided pre-criminal security measures which should be carried out under conditional
liberty, for the purposes of their execution.

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W A T C H

New Castro, Same Cuba
Political Prisoners in the Post-Fidel Era
In July 2006, Fidel Castro handed over control of the Cuban government to his brother Raúl Castro. Rather than
dismantle the country’s repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active. Scores of
political prisoners arrested under Fidel Castro continue to languish in Cuba’s prisons, and Raúl Castro’s
government has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their
fundamental freedoms.
The Cuban government has relied in particular on a “dangerousness” provision of the Criminal Code that allows
authorities to imprison individuals before they have committed a crime, on the suspicion that they might commit
an offense in the future. This report documents more than 40 cases of human rights defenders, journalists, and
nonviolent political activists imprisoned for “dangerousness” under Raúl Castro.
Based on a fact-finding mission to the island and more than 60 in-depth interviews, New Castro, Same Cuba
describes the everyday forms of repression applied to those who criticize the government, such as beatings and
public acts of repudiation; the rampant due process abuses these individuals endure when brought to trial; and
the cruel, inhumane treatment they suffer at the hands of prison officials.
Cuba will not curb its abuses unless it is pressured by the international community to do so. Unfortunately, the
US embargo has imposed indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban people while doing nothing to improve the
situation of human rights on the island. Meanwhile, the policies of the European Union, Canada, and Latin
American countries have done little to hold Raúl Castro’s government accountable for its repressive practices.
To remedy this continuing failure, this report lays out a proposal for the United States, the EU, Canada, and Latin
American allies to forge a multilateral approach towards Cuba, which will exert targeted pressure on the Raúl
Castro government to release all political prisoners.

Raúl Castro speaks at a rally in Camagüey,
Cuba, in July 2007, a year after being handed
power by his ailing brother, Fidel Castro
(depicted in the bas-relief in the foreground).
© 2007 Jose Goitia/The New York Times/
Redux Pictures

R I G H T S