» Non-Cooperation

Campaign against Impunity Launched in Cuba
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Miami. October 29, 2008. Cuban Democratic Directorate. In a statement issued on Wednesday October 29 on behalf of the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoners Movement, Cuban human Rights activist and former prisoner of conscience Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez,” launched a new “Campaign against Impunity” in Cuba. As part of the wider “I Do Not Cooperate with the Dictatorship, I Do Want Change” initiative launched in Cuba in 2005, this campaign seeks to bring human rights violators in Cuba before the courts and to raise awareness among Cuban citizens of their right, before God and the law, to defend their dignity.

 

The document directly addresses individual Cuban citizens to ask for their support.

 

 “My fellow countryman, you have every legal and moral right to demand, in a peaceful and civic-minded way, that the government and its authorities respect your person and dignity in the first place, and in turn, to demand that those who commit abuses and violations be brought before the courts. Living in a country without freedom does not take away your right to demand freedom. Basic freedoms and rights are not granted by any government- they are prerogatives belonging to you by virtue of the simple fact of having been born, and not to demand their respect is to contribute to repression and to encourage those who violate those freedoms and rights,” reads the statement.

 

Please find below the complete text of the statement launching the Campaign against Impunity.

 

“Campaign against Impunity”

 

Brother, sister; fellow Cuban:

 

The Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoners Movement invites you to join the Campaign against Impunity. You, as a fellow countryman and victim of totalitarian repression, have surely suffered the pain of impunity in some form and we invite you not to contribute to the abuses and outrages the regime commits remaining in the shadows and their culprits remaining in impunity.

 

Even according to Cuban law, all citizens have the same rights and are subject to the same duties, whatever their rank, position, or authority. My fellow countryman, you have every legal and moral right to demand, in a peaceful and civic-minded way, that the government and its authorities respect your person and dignity in the first place, and in turn, to demand that those who commit abuses and violations be brought before the courts. Living in a country without freedom does not take away your right to demand freedom. Basic freedoms and rights are not granted by any government- they are prerogatives belonging to you for the simple fact of having been born, and not to demand their respect is to contribute to repression and to encourage the violators of those freedoms and rights.

 

This initiative against impunity, part of the Non-Cooperation Campaign, constitutes in itself a powerful force and weapon of struggle and defense, which equates to a strong and moral curb against the material and intellectual authors of as many violations of your rights as may occur, of as much mistreatment of which you may be victim.

 

Fellow Cuban, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights la Carta Universal de los Derechos Humanos and the International Covenants on Civil, Social, Cultural and Political Rights- documents signed by the Cuban government- constitute curbs against the impunity of those who violate your rights, strike your body, humiliate your honor and dignity or simply deny you the spaces proper to a social being.  Furthermore, the Cuban Constitution itself, and even the penal code currently in effect provide for punishment against physical abuses as well as attacks on human honor and dignity in their articles.

 

We count on your support and collaboration, which would be to support and collaborate with our brothers in and out of the prisons against whom police abuses and outrages have been committed, and whose repressors enjoy the most open and obscene impunity.

 

Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez”

Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoners Movement.

 

Note: We seek the support of internal opposition and exile organizations for this important Campaign against Impunity, underlining not only the invitation to participate, but also the invitation to offer their suggestions and contributions for an initiative like this one- of Cubans, by Cubans, and for Cubans.

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Directorio Democrático Cubano Cuban Democratic Directorate

 

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