Women of the Cuban Resistance Launch Appeal to Defend Women Suffering Repression at the Hands of the Cuban Regime

Press Releases

From Cuba

Articles

Human Rights

Media Coverage

» Press Releases

Women of the Cuban Resistance Launch Appeal to Defend Women Suffering Repression at the Hands of the Cuban Regime
By Asamblea de la Resistencia

Miami. August 22, 2011. Assembly of the Cuban Resistance. At a press conference held in Miami today, the women of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance and other exile organizations launched a campaign to defend the Ladies in White and other women resistance activists who are facing brutal repression at the hands of the Castro regime.

“The physical, verbal, and psychological assaults that non-violent Cuban women are suffering at the hands of mostly male State Security (SS) officials, violate Article 1 of the Belem do Para Convention, adopted by the Organizations of American States in reference to the rights of women in modern society”, states the appeal launched today in the form of a petition signed by 20 women Cuban exiles.

The petition calls for:

1- An end to the systematic and institutionalized violence against the Ladies in White and the non-violent women of the Cuban resistance movement, who are all defenders of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Cubanpeople.

2- The undertaking of investigations by international organizations on each case of violence perpetrated by theCuban regime against Cuban women during 2011

3- International solidarity from women leaders in the free world, international organizations and democratic governments.

The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance also made public a special report detailing cases of violence against the Ladies in White and other women members of the Resistance in 2011.

Please find below the complete text of the appeal launched today by the Women of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance:

DECLARATION IN DEFENSE OF THE PHYSICAL WELL-BEING

OF THE CUBAN WOMEN IN THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT

As Cuban women in exile and members of the Assembly of the Resistance and other exile organizations, we denounce before international public opinion, humanitarian organizations and democratic governments, the increase of violence against those Cuban women who struggle nonviolently inside Cuba. We denounce the criminal nature of the regime of Fidel and Raul Castro, with its systematic physical aggressions and attacks on the dignity of these Cuban women of the internal resistance; methods that were once carried out during the sixties and seventies against women political prisoners and their families, as well as against women in the past who were not political prisoners, as were the case of those Cuban womenwho were forcibly relocated far from their homes to internment camps.

The physical, verbal, and psychological assaults that non-violent Cuban women are suffering at the hands of mostly male State Security (SS) agents, violate Article 1 of the Belem do Para Convention, adopted by the Organizations of American States in reference to the rights of women in modern society.

Therefore, we call for:

2- The undertaking of investigations by international organizations on each case of violence perpetrated by theCuban regime against Cuban women during 2011, which are documented in the report attached to this petition.

3- International solidarity from women leaders in the free world, international organizations and democratic governments.

The undersigned exiled Cuban women, in a personal capacity and in representation of their respective organizations belonging to the Cuban Assembly of the Resistance and others, urgently call upon all Cuban women and all defenders of the rights of women around the world- both in a personal capacity and on behalf of the organizations they represent- to sign this petition and raise their voices together with ours, to denounce the violations and abuses that are being perpetrated systematically by the Castro regime against the Ladies in White and women of the resistance in Cuba.