Felipe Ramón Pérez Roque, Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs: for Cubans a representative of the old regime and not a carrier of hope

Frankfurt am Main / Havana (6th of March 2008) - After a long time of refusal, Cuba signed two human rights agreements of the UN on the 28th of February 2008 -  but these haven't been ratified yet. As other examples of totalitarian countries (like Vietnam and Belarus) show, signatures are not enough to reach a real improvement. The International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) demands that these agreements should be animated by releasing political prisoners, establishing freedom of trade unions and freedom of the press and permitting democratic parties.

Originally the signing of these two agreements had been planned for the International Human Rights Day on the 10th of December 2007, but it took place only some days ago. To what extent the signing of the treaties will be followed by a prompt implementation, can only be seen in the next months.

Hundreds of political prisoners

The International Pact about civil and political rights and the International Pact bout economic, social and cultural rights are underlining the importance of individual rights of freedom and security and are prohibiting arbitrary arrest. Rights that aren't given in Cuba at the moment. The database of the ISHR is keeping records of the destiny of around 300 political prisoners who are at the moment imprisoned in Cuban prisons. Reasons are for example their expression of opinion or their engagement for more civil rights. They are condemned to long lasting imprisonments. Independent media is a goal of the intimidation campaign, a private internet access isn't possible and even religious meetings in private households can be punished with up to three months in prison or a monetary.

Also other totalitarian countries had already signed

The examples of other dictatorships show that the signing of the agreements doesn't automatically lead to an improvement of the human rights situation: Vietnam, Iran, Zimbabwe and Belarus had signed the agreements, too. Nevertheless the human rights are still restricted and violated in these countries. A real change didn't happen. The signing of the agreement by Cuba is a positive sign, but we have to hope that the Cuban leadership will adopt another line than Zimbabwe or Iran so that the implementation of the agreements will begin as soon as possible.