FRANCIA, January 29, 2009. A top-level Cuban delegation will present next week in Geneva a report to the Fourth session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). In an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina, Cuban ambassador to international organizations in Geneva Juan Antonio Fernandez said "There have already been three previous sessions in which nearly 48 countries have been reviewed. Although this exercise has so far taken place satisfactorily, it is still to be consolidated." Fernandez said "This is a new mechanism, which requires time to give concrete results, but in any case it is a step to eliminate the negative practices and malevolence of the former Human Rights Commission," he noted. With a long labor history in Geneva, Fernandez said that Cuba will attend the next UPR session with a high-level representation, presided over by Justice Minister Maria Esther Reus, as well as officials from the government and institutions. After some years fighting the former Commission and now within the HRC emerged in 2006, Cuba will fulfill its UPR on February 5. The former body, now discredited, was uncapable of condemning kidnappings, arbitrary detentions, and inhumane and humiliating US torture and cruelty with prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq, and the its naval base in the illegally occupied Cuban territory of Guantanamo, the official stated. (Cubaminrex- PL) |