GENEVA, March 7, 2019 – The Swiss non-governmental human rights group United Nations Watch announced today, in a written filing that will be circulated next week by the UN Human Rights Council ahead of its March 12^th debate on human rights situations that require the world’s attention, that Cuba’s most famous political prisoner—Dr. Eduardo Cardet, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement—won a UN ruling calling for his release.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a quasi-judicial panel of five experts, upheld in full a petition filed by United Nations Watch, a leading voice for Cuban dissidents, and determined that Cuba is “arbitrarily detaining” dissident Dr. Eduardo Cardet, who has been imprisoned by the regime since November 30, 2016, for criticizing Fidel Castro.
In its Opinion no. 66/2018 (unofficial English translation here), the Working Group found that Cuba arrested Dr. Cardet without a legal basis. The UN panel called on Cuba to immediately release Dr. Cardet and grant him reparations.
The Working Group found that “the deprivation of liberty of Mr. Eduardo Cardet Concepción is arbitrary,” noting specifically that it contravened the following Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees: the right to be free from arbitrary arrest, the right to a fair trial, the right to presumption of innocence, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, and freedom of association.
An independent and impartial UN body, the Working Group consists of experts from Australia, Benin, Mexico, South Korea and Latvia. Cuba argued that the arrest, imprisonment and trial of Dr. Cardet should be considered legal under domestic and international law. In reaching its decision, the Working Group upheld the legal arguments made by United Nations Watch and rejected all of Cuba’s arguments seeking to justify its imprisonment of Dr. Cardet.
“This is an important decision by the Working Group,” said United Nations Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. “The Cuban government holds onto power by suppressing democracy. It routinely punishes political dissent through an array of human rights abuses including arbitrary arrests, beatings and other cruel and inhuman treatment, and harassment of activists and their families. Following its thorough review of the facts and evidence, the Working Group has found that Cuba’s treatment of Dr. Cardet, a pro-democracy activist, violated his rights under international law. We call on Cuba to honor the UN body’s decision, and to immediately release Dr. Cardet.”
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MORE INFORMATION
Highlights of the Working Group’s decision are as follows.
Concerning the legal basis for Dr. Cardet’s arrest, the Working Group concluded (at Paras 47-49):
In the present case, state security officials, without identifying themselves, arrested Mr. Cardet Concepción in a violent manner, without explanation. They did not show an arrest warrant, nor did they inform him of the existence of criminal charges against him. In addition, Mr. Cardet Concepción was not brought promptly before a judge. There was no independent judicial control of the detention. On the contrary, he was taken to a local police station, where he was beaten again and held incommunicado for nine days. He did not have access to a lawyer. He was denied visits and phone calls, his family was unaware of his whereabouts… In view of these considerations, in the absence of a warrant of arrest and subsequent incommunicado detention, lack of judicial control, legal, medical and family contact, the Working Group must conclude that there was no legal basis for the arrest, so that the detention is considered arbitrary under category I, being contrary to Articles 9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Concerning the violation of Dr. Cardet’s rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, the Working Group concluded (at Paras 52-54):
In the present case, two days after Mr. Cardet Concepción made public statements against the former President of the Republic, in the peaceful exercise of his human rights, he was arrested on the street by officers of the State Security forces. Likewise, this detention was preceded by threats and harassment by official agents to the family of Mr. Cardet Concepción, who were told the authorities would arrest him for being counterrevolutionary. In addition, agents of the State Security forces have repeatedly threatened and harassed Mr. Cardet during his detention, both before and after his conviction, telling him that if he gives up his beliefs and opinions he will be released… In view of the foregoing, the Working Group considers that the Cuban authorities deprived Mr. Cardet Concepción of his freedom to exercise his rights to freedom of thought, conscience, opinion, expression, association and participation, recognized in Articles 18, 19, 20 and 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which makes it arbitrary according to category II.
Concerning the violation of Dr. Cardet’s due process rights, the Working Group concluded (at Paras 57-60):
In the opinion of the Working Group, the lack of communication during the first days of the arrest and the beginning of the trial, the lack of access to a lawyer, the ill-treatment and the inhuman conditions of detention, indicate that Mr. Cardet Concepción did not receive a fair trial with the guarantees of due process. The source also established that in Cuba the courts are subordinated to the executive and legislative branches, which are controlled by the Communist Party. The Working Group is aware that treaty bodies, of which Cuba is a party, have expressed concern about the lack of independence of the judiciary… The Working Group was convinced that the Cuban authorities seriously failed to observe international norms regarding the right to a fair, independent and impartial trial, which contravenes the provisions of Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Rights Human, and makes the detention arbitrary according to Category III of the Methods of Work.
For more information about the case, see here.
 

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UN Watch hopes to exert pressure on Cuba

GENEVA, July 26, 2018 – Human rights lawyers lodged a legal complaint with the UN today to demand that Cuba release Dr. Eduardo Cardet, a dissident who has been jailed, severely beaten and denied medical treatment since his violent arrest on November 30, 2016.
The 23-page legal complaint to the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, an independent tribunal of five jurists and human rights experts, was submitted by attorneys from the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights group UN Watch.
The UN panel’s rulings are not legally binding, but are cited by judges worldwide and can exert pressure on governments to release those imprisoned without due process.
“Cuba’s brutal treatment of Dr. Cardet is part of its pattern of repression and intimidation against civil society activists who dare to speak out against the one-party regime,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, a human rights lawyer.
“Arbitrary detention should not be used as a tool to suppress political dissent. Our complaint seeks to hold Cuba accountable for its wrongful imprisonment of Dr. Cardet—a violation of international law and of Dr. Cardet’s human rights.”
“As a member of the 47-nation Human Rights Council, Cuba will be in contempt of its basic obligations if it ignores a ruling from that body’s experts calling for the release of Dr. Cardet.”
Background about the case
Cuban security forces violently arrested Dr. Cardet outside his home on November 30, 2016, after he returned from an overseas trip where he was quoted saying that “Castro was a very controversial man, very much hated and rejected by our people.”
Cuban State Security forces threatened his wife that they would arrest Dr. Cardet on his return due to his political activism.
Dr. Cardet became a democracy activist with the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) in Cuba in the early 2000s and rose up through the ranks to become its leader in 2014. He has spearheaded MCL initiatives aimed at peaceful democratic change in Cuba, including The Varela Project and One Cuban, One Vote.
On March 20, 2017, a Cuban court convicted Dr. Cardet in an unfair trial on trumped-up charges of attacking a police officer during his arrest, and sentenced him to three years in prison.
Since being arrested, Dr. Cardet has been subjected to severe beatings, harsh prison conditions, denial of medical treatment, denial of visits by a priest, denial of release on bail, and routine deprivation of family visits.
Most recently, on May 26, 2018, the Cuban authorities suspended family visits altogether for a six-month period as punishment for the family’s public campaign for Dr. Cardet’s release. Cuban agents have also harassed Dr. Cardet’s family, monitoring their movements and throwing rocks at the family home.
UN Watch is leading voice at the United Nations for Cuban victims
UN Watch, founded in 1993 by civil rights leader Morris Abram, has been a leading voice for Cuban human rights defenders and victims at the UN. The group often brings Cuban dissidents to testify before UN bodies, including the Human Rights Council.
On May 16, when senior Cuban officials came before the UN for a mandatory review of the regime’s human rights record, UN Watch and its partners co-hosted the only counter-event, featuring Cuban dissident Rosa Maria Payá, Freedom House’s Alessandra Pinna, CADAL’s Gabriel C. Salvia, and UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer.
At the side event, UN Watch revealed how the Cuban regime submitted hundreds of positive reviews of its human rights record from supposed non-governmental organizations that are in fact state-controlled—including the “Cuban Urological Society” and the “Cuban Federation of Canine Sports.” UN Watch exposed the fraud, which was reported worldwide by Spanish newswire EFE.
During the UN plenary debate, top Cuban diplomat Rodolfo Reyes lashed out at UN Watch for exposing his regime’s abuses, as quoted on Cuba’s state television, saying, “We reject the dirty and failed maneuvers of organizations like Freedom House and United Nations Watch, both with a well-known record of actions against every fair and noble cause that exists in the world.”

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Above: Orhan Kemal Cengiz, second from left, at the UN for the opening session of the
8th Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Feb. 22, 2016. In this photo, UN Watch
imagined what the world would be like if human rights heroes represented their countries.

GENEVA, July 25, 2016 — UN Watch, a Geneva based non-governmental human rights group, welcomed Turkey’s release yesterday of human rights advocate and journalist Orhan Kemal Cengiz after four days of arbitrary detention, but urged UN chief Ban Ki-moon and human rights commissioner Zeid to condemn the government of President Recep Teyyip Erodgan for imposing conditions on Mr. Cengiz that include a travel ban.

Cengiz and his wife Sibel Hurtas, also a journalist, were detained Thursday at Istanbul airport while en route to attend a conference in London. Hurtas was released the same day, but Cengiz was detained until yesterday.
Mr. Cengiz had visited the UN Human Rights Council in February, and testified about abuses in Turkey, hosted by the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, a coalition of 25 human rights groups led by UN Watch.
UN Watch campaigned over the past four days for Mr. Cengiz’s release. “By arresting a prominent journalist, lawyer and human rights defender, the Turkish government has seriously compromised its claim to be defending democracy and the rule of law,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
“We urge Ban Ki-moon and High Commissioner Zeid to condemn the illegal ban on Mr. Cengiz’s travel, which among other things would prevent him from visiting the United Nations to provide the world body with vital new information and analysis on the desperate situation of human rights in Turkey.”
 

Purged by #Turkey:
1,577 university deans
2,745 judges
21,000 teachers
Response by @UN_HRC:
Urgent Sessions: 0
Resolutions: 0
Inquiries: 0

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) July 19, 2016

About Orhan Kemal Cengiz

• Human Rights Defender, Lawyer, Journalist
• Born January 13, 1968
• Founding member of the Human Rights Agenda Association (Insan Haklari Gundemi Dernegi), established in 2003, which he chaired until 2012.
• Cengiz also founded the Civil Society Development Center and new sections within the Izmir Bar Association, including a section dealing with torture and ill-treatment. Between 1999 and 2002 he worked as a legal adviser at the Kurdish Human Rights Project in London.
• In 2007, he received death threats due to his professional activity in the Malatya murder case, in which three Christians were killed by men linked to ultra-nationalist organizations.
• In 2008, thanks to an Amnesty International campaign, the state provided him with a bodyguard. Mr. Cengiz is now an independent human rights lawyer and expert.
• Cengiz has been a prolific journalist since the Turkish government’s crackdown on the media, contributing to several newspapers, including Today’s Zaman, Radikal, Al-Monitor, Ozgur Dusunce, and Bugun. He wrote extensively on human rights related topics, from the Kurdish issue to the Armenian Genocide to the Deep State (Ergenekon) case.
• Currently he is one of the lawyers in the “Tahir Elci” case, named for the Kurdish human rights lawyer and president of the Diyarbakir Bar Association who was killed in November 2015.
• In February 2016, Mr. Cengiz was a speaker at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, devoting his entire speech to the memory of his beloved friend Tahir Elci.
• He was arrested on July 21, 2016, at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport while waiting to board a flight to London, where he was supposed to participate in a conference promoted by the Tahir Elci Foundation. Mr. Cengiz was with his wife, the journalist Sibel Semira Hurtas. She was released after a few hours.
• Mr. Cengiz was finally released on July 24.

Below: Orhan Kemal Cengiz addressing the adjacent Geneva Summit for Human Rights, February 23, 2016.

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UN Watch director Hillel Neuer and Lilian Tintori
June 30, 2015

The post Bid to Suspend Venezuela from UN Rights Council After Sentencing of Opposition Leader appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA,  Oct. 30, 2014 – Today at 12:30 p.m. Geneva time, one day before Iran goes before a UN examination of its human rights record, an international forum of Iranian victims, activists and experts will expose gross and systematic violations that are covered up in the regime’s written submission to the UN review session. (See excerpts below.)

Convened by the independent human rights NGO UN Watch, the parallel event will take place inside the UN’s European headquarters at the Palais de Nations in Geneva, with leading figures from around the world on the subject of human rights in Iran:

The post Today: Lawyer for executed Reyhaneh Jabarri to address UN forum day before examination of Iran's record appeared first on UN Watch.

Immediately following the clash, UN Watch submitted to U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power and EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton a draft letter that would convene an urgent debate on Venezuela, as well as a draft resolution to condemn Venezuela’s violations of human rights, suspend the government of president Nicolas Maduro from the Human Rights Council, and create a commission of inquiry.
“The leading democracies must take action now to ensure the UN upholds its obligations to protect the human rights of the Venezuelan people,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
Julieta Lopez, who lives in Geneva, took the floor today during an interactive dialogue with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, part of a 4-week session that saw Venezuelan foreign Minister Elias Jaua meet Ban Ki-moon on Monday.
“Madam High Commissioner, the alarming situation in Venezuela is very personal for me,” said Ms. Lopez. “You have spoken of the large number of people arrested for exercising their rights to peaceful assembly and to freedom of expression. Well, my nephew, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, is one of those people.”

The post Clash at UN Assembly: Venezuela Objects as Aunt of Jailed Opposition Leader Calls for Urgent Human Rights Council Debate appeared first on UN Watch.

Antunez addressing the Miami Herald editorial board

Regarded as Cuba’s Nelson Mandela, Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as “Antúnez”, was released in 2007 after 17 years in prison. His release had been requested by the EU and the Pope.
Today, however, police brutally arrested both Antunez and his wife, Yris Pérez Aguilera.
“We call on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to strongly condemn Cuba’s repression of a human rights activist who is planning to participate in a UN-related event,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based rights group UN Watch, one of the organizers of the Feb. 25th Geneva Summit.

Antunez sharply criticized the Havana regime in a recent U.S. press conference reported in the Miami Herald.

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UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer highlighted the importance of bringing victims to meet UN officials.

In January, when UN human rights chief Navi Pillay called for a full-fledged international inquiry into “serious crimes” committed by North Korea, she referenced the case of Shin and having just met him.

The UN Human Rights Council recently named commissioners to investigate the human rights record of North Korea.

“Shin Dong-hyuk isn’t just somebody who was sent to a concentration camp,” said CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who recently interviewed the North Korean survivor. “This is somebody who was born into a concentration camp. And for the majority of his life up until he was probably 22 or 23, he had no idea that there was another kind of way to exist.”

Shin told Cooper the stunning story of how he escaped from Camp 14, a brutal political prison in North Korea.

Shin was made to watch his mother and brother executed. Having been born and raised within the camp’s perverted moral universe, he was the one who had informed on their plan to escape.

“UN Watch has decided to grant the Moral Courage Award to Dong-hyuk Shin for bearing witness to atrocities and stirring the conscience of mankind to protect the fundamental human rights of the voiceless victims of North Korea,” said executive director Hillel Neuer.

“No one would have blamed him for seeking a life of quiet and recuperation. Instead, Shin dedicates his life to speaking out for those left behind,” said Neuer.

UN Watch has brought numerous North Korean victims and activists to speak at the UN, and leads NGO campaigns to confront the murderous dictatorship within the world body.

UN Watch is best known for organizing the annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, a key gathering for dissidents, and for bringing victims to testify before the United Nations Human Rights Council, including from China, Cuba, Egypt, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Venezuela.

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Concerted U.N. speeches slam Chavez bid for rights council seat; dictatorships urged “striking NGO statement from the record”

Venezuelan banker & ex-political prisoner Eligio Cedeno challenges his oppressor; Chavez rep calls him a “terrorist” & “criminal,” UN Watch is “U.S. lackey”  

GENEVA, June 28 – The United Nations stopped all debate today at its top human rights body while the U.S. squared off against heated interruptions by a fist-banging Cuban delegate, supported by China, Russia and Pakistan, who were outraged over activists’ criticism of both their ally Hugo Chavez’s bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council and of the council membership of other “authoritarian” governments. (See video at mark 27:20.)

UN Watch, the Geneva-based human rights group that heads an international campaign of parliamentarians and human rights groups opposed to Venezuela’s candidacy, organized a high-profile council appearance today by Eligio Cedeno, Venezuela’s most-wanted man.

The banker and former political prisoner, who escaped the clutches of Hugo Chavez for asylum in the U.S., confronted his oppressor in a powerful plenary statement.

Exercising its right of reply, Venezuela’s representative called Cedeno a “terrorist and criminal who fled justice.” The Chavez diplomat falsely accused the U.S. of having invited Cedeno to the council, which he said was “to smear the reputation of my country.” He also accused UN Watch of being a U.S. “lackey.“ (See video at mark 1:55:30)

And in a concerted effort with UN Watch, Thor Halvorssen, the Venezuelan-born head of the Human Rights Foundation — whose mother was shot by Chavez forces — also took the floor to challenge Venezuela’s credentials, as well as those of existing members Cuba, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Shouting repeatedly for the U.N. chair to stop the speech, the Cuban delegate flew into a range, his fists banging on the table, and knocking over his own chair.

Cuba said that non-governmental activists taking the floor at the U.N. “cannot question the hopes and aspirations of states to become members of the Human Rights Council, or their right to be members. You cannot say that my country does not have a right to be a member of this council.” Havana’s delegate demanded that Halvorssen’s statement be “struck from the record.”

Russia and Pakistan similarly claimed that Halvorssen spoke out of turn. China said that activists at the U.N. “are not entitled to challenge the right of a country to become a member of the council.”

However, UN Watch director Hillel Neuer said that a quick intervention by the U.S. apparently convinced the chair to let the statement stand.

“Today was a rare moment at the U.N.,” said Neuer. “We succededed in putting Chavez — who throws inpendent judges in jail and persecutes student activists — on the defensive.”

When Halvorssen referred to “authoritarian” regimes, Cuba interrupted again, calling it a “disrespectful term,” and asked the chair to prohibit him from speaking. China also objected, saying no one at the U.N. human rights council has a right “to label a sovereign state, to point a finger at a country that is a member, or which wishes to become a member.”

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