Cuba’s Decree-Law 35/21 is Incompatible with International Standards / Cubalex

(There are no subtitles for this video. Our apologies.)

Presented by Laritza Diversent, Director of Cubalex, for the Human Rights Subcommittee of the European Parliament on September 6, 2021:

Decree Law 35/21 is incompatible with international standards as it indirectly restricts freedom of opinion and expression in the digital context and promotes discrimination based on political opinion or that of another nature and is an assault on the right to equality. Although the State has the right to regular public telecommunication services, in international rights, national sovereignty is not a legitimate motive to restrict the fundamental rights of people subject to its jurisdiction.

These restrictions contradict Articles 8, 40, 41, 47, 54 and 228 in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba and are contrary to the international treaties ratified by the State, which form part of the national legal order and specifically protect freedom of expression. Among these are the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

By virtue of signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights, the Cuban State is compelled to protect freedom of expression. Said commitment is confirmed in Article 47 of the Cuban Constitution which recognizes the rights of people to freely develop their personality, and in Article 54, which obliges the State to guarantee freedom of expression, necessary for the enjoyment of human rights, the illegitimate restriction of which assumes a violation of the principles of indivisibility, interdependence and progressiveness of human rights recognized in Article 41.

Read the complete statement [in Spanish] in the following pdf file:

Analisis-DL-35-21-EDITADO

This entry first appeared on Cubalex as “El D-L/21 es una normative incompatible con los estándares internacionales”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez