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The governments of 21 countries, including the United States and five Latin American countries, condemned on Monday the “massive arrests and detentions” and repression in Cuba and demanded respect for human rights on the island.
The declaration was signed by the foreign ministers of Austria, Brazil, Colombia, South Korea, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Ecuador, United States, Estonia, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, and Ukraine.
The release recalls that last July 11 “tens of thousands of Cuban citizens participated in demonstrations throughout the country in protest against the deterioration of living conditions and in demand for change,” and denounces that in response to these demonstrations “the Government responded with violence.”
The ministers of the aforementioned countries also stressed that the demonstrators “exercised the fundamental freedoms of expression and assembly enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the European Convention on Human Rights.”
They, therefore, urged Cuba to respect “the rights and freedoms of the Cuban people, guaranteed by law, without fear of arrest or detention.”
“We urge the Cuban government to release those detained for exercising their rights to peaceful protest,” the statement regarding repression in Cuba added. “We call for freedom of the press and the full restoration of Internet access.”
