Cuban LGBTI take their demands to the Attorney General

Cuban LGBTI take their demands to the Attorney General
August 2, 2014
Isbel Díaz Torres

HAVANA TIMES – In the name of the Rainbow Project (Proyecto Arcoíris), I
delivered a letter last Thursday to the Cuban Attorney General's Office.
The letter is a denunciation of violations committed by the "Style and
Contents Commission" of the National People's Power Assembly who were
responsible for the final draft of the Labor Code.

This Commission, directed by José Luis Toledo Santander, president of
the Parliament's Commission for Constitutional and Judicial Issues,
failed to fulfill the mandate they received in December of 2013; their
draft completely disregarded the proposals of the LGBT workers, several
deputies and even those of President Raul Castro, First Vice-President
Miguel Díaz-Canel, and those of the President of the National Assembly,
Esteban Lazo.

The Commission was supposed to have "harmoniously" integrated into the
final text the concept that gender identity and negative or positive HIV
status comprise totally inadmissible motives for discrimination against
any human being in the realm of employment or workplaces, as part of the
fundamental principles that compose the right to work in Article 2,
Subsection B of the Code.

Towards that end, the DA's office was urged to investigate fully the
violations and arbitrary actions of the said Commission, as well as
those of all the institutions and persons involved in the final draft of
the Labor Law.

The grievance was made public this past July 26th in a declaration of
the LGBT collective entitled "LGBTI community of Cuba in national
rebellion." The declaration concludes:

"As citizens of this country and also in our role as activists for human
and sexual rights who defend the idea of an anti-capitalist,
revolutionary and democratic society, we demand that exemplary measures
be taken and that all existing judicial procedures be exhausted with an
eye to submitting once again to the vote of Parliament a measure
incorporating non-discrimination for gender identity or for having a
positive or negative HIV/AIDS status into the Labor Code.

The letter was delivered to the seat of the Attorney General's Office of
the Republic, located at the corner of 1st and 18th St. in the Playa
district in the afternoon of this past Thursday. The State office
legally has 60 days to present a written response.

Source: Cuban LGBTI take their demands to the Attorney General - Havana
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