The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a body dedicated to unjust imprisonment cases, recently found that 49 Cuban citizens arrested during the historic July 11, 2021, anti-communist protests were detained arbitrarily, the human rights organization Prisoners Defenders revealed Tuesday.
The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) made the declaration in rulings regarding two separate cases brought before it by Prisoners Defenders, concerning two separate groups of political prisoners in the communist country. The groups total 49 people; the recognition that they have been detained arbitrarily brings the total of such cases in the island nation to 93 between 2019 and 2025. Cuba is the country with the most cases of arbitrary detention verified by the WGAD in the group, totaling 20 more cases than the runner-up, Egypt.
The WGAD’s declaration is notable not just because it highlights the scale of political and religious repression on the island, but because the United Nations has for decades been a welcoming atmosphere for the communist dictatorship. Cuba holds a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council to this day, and the U.N. human rights office has shared propaganda in defense of Cuba following its rightful return to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism this year.
In a press release and analysis of the Working Group’s rulings shared with Breitbart News, Prisoners Defenders noted that the individuals involved were largely arrested in the aftermath of the July 11 protests, which brought together nearly 200,000 people, according to some estimates, to call for an end to communism in the country in 2021. Many of these were processed legally in mass trials despite the differing circumstances of their detention. Several of the defendants were arrested while engaging in active membership in the Free Yoruba Association of Cuba, a group of practitioners of the African Yoruba religion, sometimes referred to as santería or lukumí, who reject the Communist Party’s attempts to control their worship.
The WGAD identified as a “common element” among the cases that “none of the aforementioned detainees, at the time of their apprehension, were informed of the reasons for their detention, presented with an arrest warrant, or informed of their rights.”
“They were all charged with vague and disproportionate crimes, such as ‘contempt,’ ‘assault,’ or ‘public disorder,’ whose criminal definition lacks precision and can be used to criminalize criticism of the government,” the Working Group observed.
The United Nations follows an international legal definition of “arbitrary detention” that includes cases where it is “clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty,” due process is not observed, and/or when the deprivation of liberty violates fundamental human rights, as listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the U.N.’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
The United Nations body also examined evidence that the individuals in question were tortured, denied access to proper medical treatment, and subjected to enforced disappearance, a crime against humanity when done systematically.
The victims, Prisoners Defenders asserted on Tuesday, “were arbitrarily detained for political and ideological reasons and without due process or defense, in addition to suffering multiple other crimes against humanity, such as forced disappearance and isolation, torture, and multiple and very serious violations of their human rights.”
It listed among their crimes the use of their “freedom of expression, religious freedom, the right to peaceful assembly, demonstration, and civic participation.”
“This means that arbitrary detention in Cuba is not an isolated or circumstantial problem,” the Prisoners Defenders statement continued. “It is an authoritarian model of governance underpinned by crimes against humanity, in which all agents of the criminal justice system — police, prosecution, courts, and prisons — operate as part of the same scheme of political control at the state level.”
The president of Prisoners Defenders, Javier Larrondo, highlighted in a separate message shared with Breitbart News that Cuba’s leadership in enforced disappearances, as well as arbitrary detentions, is notable because the former is often the product of actions by non-state actors.
“Cuba is only behind Mexico, Iraq, and Colombia in enforced disappearances, with an essential particularity,” he explained. “While in those countries, enforced disappearances occur as a consequence of mafias, in Cuba, the only mafia that causes enforced disappearances is the government itself, which constitutes a crime against humanity.”
“Among the victims are priests, people of faith, activists, and vulnerable people but they are in their majority citizens with no affiliation or any political activism. Many of the affected still in prison have extremely grave health problems, he explained, highlighting the case of one Free Yoruba prisoner “who was pregnant in prison, who they tortured to cause an abortion, but was saved literally by the intervention of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom.”
The United Nations has made no meaningful moves to oust Cuba from the Human Rights Council despite this deplorable record, in part due to the regime’s prowess in accumulating political clout from other U.N. members seeking support amid their own violations. The WGAD’s rulings follow a series of setbacks for the Communist Party at the United Nations, however — most prominently a significant loss of support for its symbolic protest vote against America at the U.N. General Assembly.
Annually, the Cuban regime forces a vote to condemn Washington for its alleged “embargo” against its economy. In reality, while the United States has measures in place to prevent American funding of the human rights abuses the Communist Party regularly practices, these measures do not prevent trade for basic needs or the offering of humanitarian aid to Cubans, which the regime itself often denies its people.
For many years, only the United States and Israel voted against condemning the alleged “embargo” at the United Nations General Assembly. During the era of President Barack Obama, who promoted policies benefiting the Cuban Communist Party, even the United States sometimes abstained from voting against the condemnation.
In October, an unprecedented seven nations voted against condemning the “embargo.” In addition to America and Israel, Argentina, Hungary, Paraguay, North Macedonia, and Ukraine voted against the measure. Ukrainian officials were unequivocal in condemning the Cuban regime for offering Russia mercenaries to kill Ukrainians in the ongoing invasion of the latter country. Another 12 countries — Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Czechia, Ecuador, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Moldova and Romania — abstained from the vote, denying Cuba their support.
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