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Cuba Families Torn Apart The High Cost of U.S. and Cuban Travel Restrictions This 69-page report shows how the travel policies of both countries infringe upon the internationally recognized right to freedom of movement, which includes the right to leave and return to one’s own country. In the case of parents and children forced to reside in different countries, the policies also violate the international prohibition on the involuntary separation of families. HRW Index No.: B1705 October 19, 2005 Also available in 
Download PDF, 2470 KB, 71 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Cuba: Child Soldier Global Report 2001 From the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers There are indications of under-18s in government armed forces. The government has in the past taken a position that 17 should be the minimum recruitment age. June 12, 2001 Cuba: Landmine Monitor Report 2000 Key developments since March 1999: Cuba participated as an observer in the First Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty and in some of the treaty's intersessional meetings. It abstained on the 1999 UN General Assembly vote in support of the treaty, as it had in previous years. August 1, 2000 Cuba's Repressive Machinery: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution Over the past forty years, Cuba has developed a highly effective machinery of repression. The denial of basic civil and political rights is written into Cuban law. In the name of legality, armed security forces, aided by state-controlled mass organizations, silence dissent with heavy prison terms, threats of prosecution, harassment, or exile. Cuba uses these tools to restrict severely the exercise of fundamental human rights of expression, association, and assembly. The conditions in Cuba's prisons are inhuman, and political prisoners suffer additional degrading treatment and torture. In recent years, Cuba has added new repressive laws and continued prosecuting nonviolent dissidents while shrugging off international appeals for reform and placating visiting dignitaries with occasional releases of political prisoners. This report documents Cuba's failures to respect the civil and political rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as well as the international human rights and labor rights treaties it has ratified. It shows that neither Cuban law nor practice guarantees the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration. Cuba's obligation to respect the declaration arises from its incorporation into the United Nations Charter, rendering all member states, including Cuba, subject to its provisions. The UDHR is widely recognized as customary international law. It is a basic yardstick to measure any country's human rights performance. Unfortunately, Cuba does not measure up. HRW Index No.: 2343 June 1, 1999 Purchase online Improvements without Reform To facilitate its full integration into the world community—and thus the world economy—the Cuban government is trying to improve its human rights image. To a limited extent, the government’s concern with image has given rise to some concrete improvements, including the release of some political prisoners prior to the expiration of their sentences, a decline in the number of political prosecutions and “acts of repudiation,” a commitment not to prosecute for “illegal exit” persons who have been repatriated to Cuba by the U.S., consent to a limited degree of human rights monitoring on two occasions, and ratification of a major human rights treaty. Nonetheless, these improvements do not indicate that the human rights situation in Cuba has fundamentally altered, nor that the necessary structural reforms have been initiated. The Cuban government continues to violate systematically the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, privacy and due process of law. HRW Index No.: B710 October 1, 1995 Dangerous Dialogue RevisitedThreats to Freedom of Expression Continue in Miami’s Cuban Exile Community In 1992, we released a report (see B407) documenting instances of harassment and intimidation against members of the Miami Cuban exile community who expressed moderate political views regarding the government of Fidel Castro or relations with Cuba. In addition to intimidation by private actors, the report found significant responsibility by the U.S. government at all levels. We have continued to monitor free expression in Miami and have noted some improvements, particularly in the apparent diminution of direct government involvement or complicity in repressive activities. Overall, however, the atmosphere for unpopular political speech remains marked by fear and danger, while government officials maintain a conspicuous silence. HRW Index No.: B614 November 1, 1994 Cuba Repression, the Exodus of August 1994, and the U.S. Response In early August 1994, hundreds of Cubans began leaving their country by boat, heading north toward the United States ninety miles away. Initially, the drama of these perilous journeys was localized, and the influx was treated as just a South Florida news story. The flow of Cubans had rapidly become an exodus, and their story of danger and desperation an international news event. For the U.S. government, the rafters were both a domestic political issue and a crisis that could shape the future of U.S.-Cuban relations. October 2, 1994 Download PDF, 213 KB, 20 pgs Printer friendly version Repression, the Exodus of August 1994, and the U.S. Response In early August 1994, hundreds of Cubans began leaving their country by boat, heading north toward the U.S. It rapidly became an exodus, and for the U.S. government, the rafters were both a domestic political issue and a crisis that could shape the future of U.S.-Cuban relations. It was clear from the earliest days of the crisis that the migrants were bargaining chips: the primary concern of the Clinton Administration was to halt their flow, and Castro knew it. Cuba used the pressure of the exodus to bring the U.S. to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, the Cuban government continued to violate the rights to freedom of expression and association as well as freedom against arbitrary detention. HRW Index No.: B612 October 1, 1994 Stifling Dissent in the Midst of Crisis A climate of hostility toward Cuban human rights monitors has developed as a result of a series of criminal statutes promulgated against “enemy propaganda,” “clandestine printings,” and “defamation of public institutions.” These statutes are being used against those who attempt to exercise their right to free speech and association in Cuba and are inconsistent with international standards of freedom of expression and of association. HRW Index No.: B602 February 1, 1994 Cuba Stifling Dissent in the Midst of Crisis This report provides an update on the human rights situation in Cuba. Again this last year, Human Rights Watch/Americas (formerly Americas Watch) has been handicapped in monitoring Cuba because of the regime's refusal to allow us to visit the country, to conduct inquiries and talk to victims, and to engage in a dialogue with the authorities. That is the methodology of human rights research that we are able to apply everywhere else in the hemisphere, but that the government of Fidel Castro refuses to allow. Monitoring human rights in Cuba also became more difficult in 1993 because of the pressures felt by Cuban human rights monitors. Some of those pressures were related to the alarming decline in living standards that all Cubans are facing, but monitors additionally confronted a climate of hostility C described in detail in the following pages that makes their work particularly hazardous. February 1, 1994 Download PDF, 197 KB, 20 pgs Printer friendly version "Perfecting" The System Of Control Cubans are all too familiar with their government’s perennial campaigns to “perfect” all aspects of Cuban society. Yet after more than three decades in power, Fidel Castro’s government has succeeded in perfecting nothing so much as its pervasive system of control. With the collapse of world communism and the Cuban economy in free fall, this system has increased in importance as a foundation for the government’s maintenance of power. This report documents the government’s increasingly abusive campaign during 1992 to retain power. HRW Index No.: B501 February 1, 1993 Cuba Attacks Against Independent Associations March 1990- February 1991 President Fidel Castro's dismissive attitude toward the resolution on Cuban human rights abuses adopted last year by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) reflects the latest chapter in a continuing and disappointing deterioration in Cuban human rights over the past three years. In 1987 and early 1988, Cuba responded to pressures from the UNCHR in a more constructive manner, permitting an opening in Havana for the emergence of a small community of human rights and independent activists. Political prisoners were released in large numbers; steps were taken to improve prison conditions; and prison doors were opened to monitoring by independent observers, including multiple visits by Americas Watch representatives. eginning with the arrival in September 1988 of a delegation of investigators sent by the UNCHR, the Cuban government began to renounce the rudimentary tolerance that it had started to show. A series of arrests since then, coupled with what for a time at least were increasingly lengthy prison terms, has decimated substantial portions of the small human rights community that had begun to emerge in Cuba. Several independent organizations have ceased to exist; others find key leaders in prison; all suffer harassment and threats by members of Cuba's security forces. February 25, 1991 Download PDF, 147 KB, 22 pgs Printer friendly version Human Rights Activists Behind Bars in Cuba As Cuba approaches the 36th anniversary of its revolution, it is engaged in an extended crackdown on independent peaceful activity and its human rights practices continue to be subject to the whim of the executive. Among the targets of this crackdown are newly-emerged human rights groups, whose establishment in recent years had given the appearance of greater openness in Cuba. Today, at least twenty-one human rights activists are believed to be held, with or without charge, for infractions of Cuban law such as producing a human rights newsletter and attempting to form a political party. The crimes under which human rights monitors are charged are considered common crimes punishable by up to one year in prison and tried at the municipal court level. Under Cuban law, defense attorneys are "not indispensable" in a municipal trial and many of the human rights monitors recently convicted of "clandestine printing" or "illicit associations, gatherings and demonstrations" have not had legal representation. July 2, 1989 Download PDF, 64 KB, 7 pgs Printer friendly version
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