Miami/The Cuban exile in Miami launched this Wednesday the independent organization Defensa CD, which will delve into the monitoring of complaints of repression in Cuba, will try to provide protection to victims, and will pay attention to demands for attacks on religious freedom.
The new organization continues the work of the Complaints Center of the Foundation for Pan American Democracy (FDP) and was presented during an event at the Florida International University (FIU) in Miami.
It will be made up of two areas, “one that is the religious freedom observatory and another that is the observation of complaints of repression,” according to Cuban activist Yunier Suárez, and director of the repression monitoring area, told EFE.
It will be made up of two areas, “one that is the religious freedom observatory and another that is the observation of complaints of repression.”
The objective, he continued, is to expand the work of the FDP and function as a tool that compiles complaints against the regime in the interior of the Island, especially those that violate human rights and “that go ‘in crescendo’ year after year.”
The organization will serve to accompany both groups or organizations that issue complaints and individuals who raise their voices, after which they will send the information to international organizations and request protection measures for the victims, including urgent calls or precautionary measures.
“It is not only monitoring, but it also seeks to make visible and protect within the tools established by the inter-American system for victims,” said the director of the Complaints Center, Juan Carlos Vargas.
Activists denounced an increase in human rights violations on the island and pointed out that they have discovered patterns of repression against political prisoners.
“They range from prolonged isolation to the deliberate and systematic denial of medical care,” Suárez said.
He also said that the relatives of political prisoners are also becoming a target of the regime’s repression.
“They range from prolonged isolation to the deliberate and systematic denial of medical care,” Suárez commented.
Also present at the launch event were the Commissioner for Cuba of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Stuardo Ralón, the General Coordinator of UNPACU, José Daniel Ferrer, and the founder of Cuba Decide and Elected Commissioner of the IACHR, Rosa María Payá.
Ferrer, one of the 75 political prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003, He arrived as a political refugee in Miami last October after being released from prison in Cuba thanks to an agreement with the United States.
Miami is the main center of the Cuban diaspora outside the Island, with more than 911,000 residents of Cuban origin in 2023, according to data from the Cuban Research Institute of Florida International University.
