Eye on Cuba: Reporting abuse of freedom in Cuba

This week we have our first guest post written by Antonella Marty, an independent journalist from Argentina. She shares with us her view on our project and the current situation in Cuba and Venezuela:

“Eye on Cuba: Reporting abuse of freedom in Cuba”

By: Antonella Marty

The “democratic reforms” in Cuba are not only a makeup to cover up violations of freedoms and human rights that are committed every day in the island by the Castro brothers.
The Castro regime is one of the longest dictatorships in world history. With more than five decades in power, continue the pursuit, trying to silence the voices of Cuban dissidents calling for respect for civil liberties.
The opposition has been suppressed by the regime, as well as any information that is not of the same party. The arbitrary and unjustified arrests, political persecution, and control media are some of the tools of the Castro to lead the lives of Cubans.

The most common modes of repression have been the application of verbal, consisting insults, intimidation and death threats, and the use of constant physical violence. The main objective of these methods of intimidation is to psychologically weaken Cubans to abandon completely the dissident activism.
Peaceful movements as the Ladies in White have been beaten and detained by the Cuban political police, and yet never lost record.

One project that is responsible for reporting abuses that are committed there is Eye on Cuba was launched by the Czech NGO People in Need. This project with emphasis on the Cuban reality is responsible for monitoring and reporting on cases of human rights violations in Cuba. Therefore, projects such as Eye on Cuba are fundamental to publicize what is happening on the island.

Reports of abuses and violations of freedoms are documented by activists express and live firsthand the harassment, beatings and imprisonment holding the Castro dictatorship.
Using data collected by Eye on Cuba from the various reports, it was revealed that 25.8% of the abuse on the island is conducted by the police, 22.6% by security agents of the state, while the rest are made by the Ministry of Interior and the Cuban political police. In this sense, most of the complaints come from Santiago de Cuba, followed by Havana, Villa Clara and Holguin.

Most violations of civil and political rights, pointing to arbitrary arrests, coupled with these safety devices ever report the reason for the arrest. Also, there have been hundreds of cases of violations of freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and personal integrity.

According to Yoani Sánchez, the famous blogger who has had numerous abuses by the Cuban dictatorship, technology is helping to slowly break the information monopoly of the Castro brothers. Not forgetting that in Cuba, the cost of internet per month costs more than three times the average salary of Cubans.

In this sense, Eye on Cuba is one of the European projects that put his sight on the island, working to provide a more accurate picture of the reality of Cuba, and to raise awareness in the international community on the situation of freedoms and human rights.

It is unacceptable that today continue to exist as totalitarian governments Nicolás Maduro and the Castro brothers, who commit torture and violate individual freedoms, and yet, after long decades in power, are not convicted or tried.

You need to present each case on violations of civil liberties of individuals, it is essential permanently repudiate the abuses by both the Cuban Castro Chavez as Venezuela. Report and disseminate all news related to the abuses committed by these totalitarian dictatorships, perhaps one of the ways to achieve the weakening of populism in Latin America.