Cuba defends rights record
Cuba says it respects all human rights, maintaining that the communist government answers to the people – not the other way around – and that state control of all labour unions, social organisations and the media strengthens individual freedoms.
A report to the UN Human Rights Council includes 131 points defending everything from the use of capital punishment to the island’s infamous prison system.
But Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation, countered that Cuba is claiming to defend the same rights it has jailed political opposition leaders for promoting.
