HRC42: Oral statement on enforced or involuntary disappearances

Agenda Item 3: Clustered ID with Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence.

Organisation: Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)

Speaker: Claire Denman

Thank you Mr President,

CSW welcomes the report of the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances.

We wish to draw the Council’s attention to enforced disappearances in Cuba, a tactic frequently used to intimidate and disrupt the work of individuals responsible for defending freedom of religion or belief and other human rights.

In a recent incident, on Friday 12 July, Cuban religious freedom defender Ricardo Fernandez Izaguirre was disappeared by state security agents after he had left the headquarters of the Ladies in White in Havana where he had been documenting violations of freedom of religion or belief.

He was subsequently held in arbitrary detention for seven days, the first four of which he was completely incommunicado. Mr Fernandez Izaguirre is married with an infant daughter, but none of his family or friends were able to contact him until the fifth day of his detention.

Upon his release, Mr Fernandez Izaguirre described how he had been kept handcuffed in a hot car for hours after his arrest so that he would suffer in the heat.

We call on the government of Cuba to release – immediately and without condition – all those currently detained for reasons related to their religion, belief, or the defence of human rights.. Where dissidents have been disappeared, we call upon Cuba to make their whereabouts known and to either charge or immediately release those being held under such conditions.

Mr Fernandez Izaguirre’s experience is typical of many Cuban human rights defenders. Every week for the past decade, women affiliated with the Ladies in White movement have been arbitrarily detained to prevent them from attending Sunday Mass, and other religious activities during the week. Often these women are held incommunicado for over 24 hours.

We call on the government of Cuba to cease the enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention of all religious leaders and human rights defenders on the island.

Thank you