CUBA VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS COVENANT:
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Prisoner of conscience is victim of trial without due process

Havana. March 5, 2008. Cuban Democratic Directorate. Prisoner of Conscience Juan Bermúdez Toranzo, arrested violently on the night of November 21, 2007 by National Revolutionary police and State Security agents, was victim of a manipulated trial held yesterday by Cuban authorities.

According to statements given by Juan Carlos González Leiva to the Cuban Democratic Directorate, General Secretary of the Council of Investigators of Human Rights in Cuba, the trial was held under “extreme police security measures”, with the vicinity closed off by State Security agents and paramilitary troops.

The trial was closed off to the public, devoid of legal guarantees, and only one family member and a few “witnesses” were allowed to attend. The activist was condemned to 4 years of prison for the supposed crime of “threat”. Before his arrest, Bermúdez Toranzo had carried out various protests in front of the police sector in the area of Cambute, where he lives, to protest the continuous aggressions and threats which he was receiving against his person. The response was his arrest, unjust incarceration, and prison sentence.

González Leiva affirmed the Council’s objection before this violation of human rights: “We are condemning this kind of trial in Cuba. The Cuban government has just signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has just made an international commitment, but continues beating non-violent dissidents on the streets for distributing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and continues carrying out summary trials.”

According to information given by González Leiva at the time of this press release, at least 11 human rights activists, among them various from the marginal neighborhood of Cambute, in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón in the City of Havana, are being processed in provincial courts and remain imprisoned under supposed accusations of “dissenting with the Cuban government”

The Cuban Democratic Directorate condemns the violations of the Cuban people’s political and civil rights by Raul Castro’s regime and calls national and international public attention to the harassment and physical abuses perpetrated against non-violent activists in the past few weeks. Meanwhile, Cuba’s own Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque has announced before the United Nations the signing of international human rights covenants that in fact are not respected nor observed in Cuba by authorities who continue to flagrantly violate citizen’s rights.

Given on the 5^th day of the month of March of the year 2008. Communique no. 14/2008

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Directorio Democrático Cubano
P.O. Box 110235
Hialeah, Florida 33011
Tel. 305-220-2713
info@directorio.org

In Memory of Mario Manuel de la Peña