CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Cuba Demands Investigation on Prisoners´ Rights in Guantanamo Base

Havana, Apr 14 (Prensa Latina) Cuba has asked the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) to request United State´s consent to allow an independent and impartial investigation into the situation of the prisoners currently held at the illegal Guantanamo Naval Base in eastern Cuba.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque asked the European Union at a press conference to co-sponsor Cuba´s resolution submitted this Thursday at the UNCHR in Geneva, to demonstrate their genuine concern over human rights.

Under the draft resolution, the group should be made up of the chairman of the Work Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special Rapporteur for Torture, the Special Rapporteur on the right of every person to the highest level of mental and physical health, and the Special Rapporteur for the independence of lawyers and judges.

It calls on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to submit a report in the next period of sessions on the situation of the people being held there, based on the investigation conducted by the above mentioned officials.

The motion finally asks the UNCHR to keep the matter on its agenda for the 62nd period of sessions in 2006 taking into account international concern for the situation of those prisoners held at the base as part of the antiterrorist drive begun after the 9/11, 2001 attacks in New York.

This initiative was submitted relying on the significant number of governments and Parliaments in the world, including the European Parliament, that have voiced their concern over the plight of prisoners held by the US in its naval base in Guantanamo.

Perez Roque assured that no maneuver will block the voting of the document next week, adding that it will not give in to requests from other delegations to withdraw its request, as Havana did last year.

Through pressure and political maneuvering, the US managed to get an anti-Cuba resolution approved Thursday by a 21-17 vote and 15 abstentions at the UNCHR.

The Foreign Minister blasted the resolution, saying that his country will neither accept nor cooperate with it since Cuba considers this apocryphal resolution illegitimate.

The US proposal was supported by the European Union, whom the Cuban representative in Geneva termed as "servile and submissive", and unable to articulate an independent foreign policy".

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