Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez regrets the advance of “conservative and neo-fascist platforms”
14ymedio/EFE, Geneva, 24 February 2025 / Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez expressed alarm at the rise of “neo-fascism” globally and the retreat of policies supporting vulnerable groups in the West, speaking at the opening of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.
“We observe with great concern the advance of conservative and neo-fascist platforms, and how in developed countries we are experiencing a decades-long regression in fundamental rights, including women’s equality, sexual and reproductive rights, the rights of Afro-descendants, of ethnic minorities and of migrants,” he said.
“The right to life is in grave danger. The United Nations Charter, international law and multilateralism are being threatened, while attempts are being made to impose economic coercion and political subversion as methods of international relations,” warned Rodríguez.
“The United Nations Charter, international law and multilateralism are being threatened, while attempts are being made to impose economic coercion and political subversion as methods of international relations”
In this context, the minister called on the United Nations Security Council, which on Monday opened six weeks of debates on crises and conflicts in the world, to “advocate more strongly for a fair and democratic international order that guarantees peace and balance in the world.”
Cuba’s foreign minister also pointed to the United States, which withdrew from the Human Rights Council with the inauguration of Donald Trump as president, for being “an active accomplice to the Israeli genocide in Gaza” and for its decades of maximum pressure on Cuba through the blockade*.
Rodríguez also stated that recently “copious evidence has been released about the US practice of allocating millions of dollars from the federal budget through entities such as USAID to finance organizations, media outlets, artificial intelligence laboratories and technological platforms that use the protection of human rights as a facade.”
“In reality, they respond to the legitimate political objectives of that government. This is a serious and pertinent matter for this Council and its mandate, as it demonstrates the double standards and opportunism with which the issue of human rights has been used to subvert sovereign governments,” he said.
The opening of the 58th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council coincided on Monday with the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was the focus of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ speech. “Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the war in Ukraine is a grave threat not only to the peace and security of Europe, but also to the very foundations and fundamental principles of the United Nations,” he said.
The opening of the 58th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council coincided on Monday with the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba has not commented on this matter, in which it has always sided with Russia, calling the invasion a “special operation.” As of 31 January 2025, there were a total of 1,150 political and prisoners of conscience on the island “suffering judicial sentences or restraining orders,” according to the organization Prisoner Defenders.
Like that organization, the human rights NGO Amnesty International has denounced that the Cuban regime, which committed itself in January to release 553 prisoners, and has incurred in a multitude of “irregularities” and “lack of transparency” in the process .
According to the NGO, 172 prisoners have been released and another nine have received some change in their legal status, with most of these being participants in the anti-government demonstrations of 11 July 2021 (11J). Prisoners Defenders, for its part, estimates the number of political prisoners released to be 200, and added that it has accredited some common prisoners who have also been released.
Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.
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