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Cuba: Trial Violates
Dissidents' Right to Free Expression
Human
Rights Watch.
April 22, 2004.
(New York, April 22, 2004) - Cuba's planned
trial of a blind human rights lawyer, along
with nine other dissidents and independent
journalists, on charges of "disrespect
for authority" demonstrates a continuing
pattern of political repression, Human Rights
Watch said today. Human Rights Watch has
learned that the trial of the 10 defendants
is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, April
27.
Juan Carlos González Leiva, a blind
lawyer, is the president of the Cuban Foundation
for Human Rights (Fundación Cubana
de Derechos Humanos). He and most of the
other defendants have been held in pretrial
detention in eastern Holguín province
for more than two years.
"The upcoming trial is a travesty,"
said Joanne Mariner, deputy director of
Human Rights Watch's Americas Division.
"The defendants face criminal charges
that clearly violate their basic rights
to freedom of expression."
The defendants were arrested on March
4, 2002 at Antonio Luaces Iraola Provincial
Hospital in Ciego de Ávila (a town
in central Cuba), and held without formal
charges for six months. They are now reportedly
being prosecuted for the crimes of disrespect
to the President (desacato al Presidente),
disrespect to the police, public disorder
and resistance.
Among the defendants are seven political
activists (Lázaro Iglesias Estrada,
Enrique García Morejón, Antonio
Marcelino García Morejón,
Delio Laureano Requejo Rodríguez,
Virgilio Mantilla Arango, Odalmis Hernández
Márquez, and Ana Peláez García)
and at least two independent journalists
(Léxter Téllez Castro and
Carlos Brizuela Yera).
González Leiva, the blind lawyer,
reportedly faces a six-year sentence, while
the other defendants face sentences ranging
from two and a half to seven years. The
criminal indictment against González
Leiva, which Human Rights Watch has reviewed,
notes critically that "he was not integrated
into mass organizations and was not involved
in any socially useful activities."
The defendants were arrested when they
visited the hospital to see an independent
journalist who had reportedly been attacked
by the police earlier in the day while he
was traveling to a meeting of the Cuban
Foundation for Human Rights. At the hospital,
members of the group shouted statements
such as "Long live human rights."
Reacting with disproportional severity to
this minor disruption, state security police
arrested the group. The police reportedly
beat González Leiva when they arrested
him, leaving him with a cut on his forehead
that required four stitches.
The denial of basic civil and political
rights is written into Cuban law. A number
of criminal law provisions grant the state
extraordinary power to prosecute people
who attempt to exercise basic rights to
free expression, opinion, association, and
assembly. The country's courts also deny
defendants internationally-recognized guarantees
of due process, including the right to a
public hearing by an independent and impartial
tribunal.
Under Cuban law, the crime of disrespect
for authority (desacato) covers 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."
Such actions are punishable by three months
to one year in prison. If the person shows
disrespect to the president the sanction
is deprivation of liberty for one to three
years.
In March 2003, police detained scores
of political dissidents and others viewed
as "counter-revolutionary" in
their thinking. By early April, the Cuban
courts had sentenced 75 defendants-including
such prominent figures as Raúl Rivero,
the poet and journalist, and Héctor
Palacios, a leader in the pro-democracy
movement-to prison terms ranging from six
to 28 years.
Last week, on April 15, the U.N. Human
Rights Commission in Geneva passed a resolution
criticizing Cuba's human rights practices.
The resolution stated that the Commission
"deplores the events which occurred
last year in Cuba," a reference to
the trials and sentencing of the 75 dissidents.
"The impending trial continues the
repressive trend that was so glaringly evident
last year in Cuba," Mariner said.
One Year After the
Crackdown
Press
Release, March 18, 2004
Crackdown Against
Dissidents in Cuba
Testimony,
April 16, 2003
Heavy Sentences Are "Totally
Unjustified"
Press
Release, April 7, 2003
Unfair Trials of Nonviolent
Dissidents
Press
Release, April 3, 2003
More Information on Human Rights
in Cuba
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