2008-12-10.
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas, Coordinator of the organizing committee of
the Varela Project
(www.miscelaneasdecuba.net).- We respectfully ask the General
Secretariat of the United Nations to distribute this message to its
Member States and to refer it to the General Assembly for its
consideration, as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the proclamation
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
To all Member States of the United Nations:
As Cubans and members of the human family, we are entitled to all the
rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Nevertheless, many of these fundamental rights and freedoms are not
guaranteed by laws established in Cuba. Even the rights enshrined in
current Cuban law are not guaranteed to all citizens due to a lack of
safeguards and to arbitrary actions by government institutions.
In practice, many of the universal human rights, whether recognized by
Cuban laws or not, are systematically violated by the institutions and
individuals protected under the umbrella of the Cuban government.
Due to this lack of respect for many civil, political, economic and
social rights, the Cuban people suffer from to insecurity, exclusion and
oppression. In Cuba, there is a notable absence of the rights to freedom
of movement, freedom of expression, and freedom to associate according
to one's legitimate beliefs and interests. Citizens are denied the right
to democratically elect government officials and to engage in economic
activities for honest personal and family gain.
The lack of safeguards to exercise these rights affirms the exploitation
of workers, abject poverty, the gap between the right and the poor, the
humiliation of Cubans in the presence of foreigners, the discrimination
suffered by Cubans in their own country, massive migration and family
separation.
The absence of tribunals, and legal institutions and media outlets to
protect all rights of the people, leaves Cubans defenseless against
abuses of power and arbitrary actions. The denial of free, democratic
and pluralistic participation of citizens in the political life of the
country impedes the exercise of popular sovereignty and the ability of
Cubans to express their desire to effect peaceful change and to achieve
peace and reconciliation.
There are many political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Cuba
who have been unjustly tried and sentenced solely for expressing their
ideas, exercising their freedom of press, and organizing peacefully to
promote democratic change and to defend human rights.
We ask the United Nations and its Human Rights Council to adopt our call
that follows:
We urge the government of Cuba:
1. To distribute, through the media, all documents that the Cuban
government has signed regarding human rights, including the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, and to reform its laws to guarantee these
rights to all citizens;
2. To cease the persecution, imprisonment, and exclusion of citizens who
promote, defend, or exercise peacefully their universally-recognized
human rights in Cuba, and to recognize in the law the organizations that
serve these purposes in Cuba and who continue to be persecuted;
3. To free, immediately and unconditionally, all those imprisoned in
Cuba for promoting, defending, and peacefully exercising human rights; and
4. To cease the persecution of citizens who promote and support the
Varela Project peacefully through the exercise of their constitutional
rights. The Varela Project is an initiative that calls for a referendum
for Cubans to decide on legal reforms that would guarantee the freedoms
of expression and association, economic freedom, the freedom to elect
their leaders democratically, and the freedom of those who are in prison
for political reasons and who have not attempted harm on others. The
Varela Project has been presented to the Cuban National Assembly of
Popular Power with the signatures of over 25,000 Cubans who have risked
or suffered persecution.
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas
Coordinator of the organizing Committee of the Varela Project
Havana, December 3, 2008.
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/article.asp?artID=18451
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