What changed between the resolution motion and the resolution motion joint

Removed:B90151/2024

Added:Motion for a European Parliament resolution on the critical situation in Cuba

Removed:European Parliament resolution on the critical situation in Cuba

(2024/2584(RSP))

The European Parliament,

Changed:– having regard to its previous resolutions on Cuba, in particular its resolution of 12 July 2023 on the state of the EU-Cuba PDCA in the light of the recent visit of the High Representative to the island,

Changed:– having regard to the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Cuba, of the other part (PDCA), signed in December 2016, which2016 hasand provisionally applied since 1 November 2017,

Changed:– having regard to theArticles reports4, of5 theand Cuban229 Observatoryof forthe HumanCuban RightsConstitution onand repressiveto actionsthe andCuban arbitraryPenal detentions,Code,

Removed:– having regard to the statement by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and its Special Rapporteurs on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights and Freedom of Expression of 15 July 2021,

Added:– having regard to the definition of ‘civil society organisation’ in the Official Journal of the European Union,

Removed:– having regard to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1984, to which Cuba is a State Party,

Added:– having regard to document ARES (2021) 2474104 by the European External Action Service (EEAS) Deputy Managing Director for the Americas,

Removed:– having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Cuba is a signatory,

– having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 16 December 1966 and other international human rights treaties and instruments,

Change 1

Removed:– having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,

Added:– having regard to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1984, to which Cuba is a State Party,

Removed:– having regard to the Cuban constitution and criminal code,

Added:– having regard to reports by human rights organisations, such as Human Rights Watch, the Human Rights Foundation and Prisoners Defenders, to Chapter IV.B on Cuba of the 2020, 2021 and 2022 annual reports of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), to the communication of 6 November 2019 to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, and the UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, on Cuban medical brigades, to the communication of 2 November 2023 to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, on Cuban medical brigades, and to the conclusions of the UN Human Rights Council’s 2018 Universal Periodic Review of Cuba with regard to Cuban medical brigades,

Removed:– having regard to Rule 132(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

Added:– having regard to the communication of 16 November 2023 issued to Cuba by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues,

Removed:A. whereas Cuba is an authoritarian state which has imposed a communist system for decades, ruling out any prospects for democratic change; whereas the Cuban constitution directly establishes, in Article 5 thereof, that the ‘unique, Martí, Fidelista and Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Cuba’ is the superior political force and ruler of society and the state, and Articles 4 and 229 thereof establish this as an irreversible system;

Added:– having regard to Rules 132(2) and (4) of its Rules of Procedure,

Removed:B. whereas the Cuban criminal code contains the definition of ‘dangerous state’ and ‘pre-criminal security measures’, for which thousands of people are sentenced to between one and four years of imprisonment every year, without there being any attributable crime, and for which more than 8 000 people have been imprisoned and more than 2 500 have been sentenced to forced labour without internment; whereas, according to the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Prisoners Defenders, more than 1 000 political prisoners were being held in detention in Cuba in December 2023;

Added:A. whereas Parliament gave its consent to the PDCA on 5 July 2017, with clear conditions linked to the improvement of human rights and democracy in Cuba, including a suspension clause in the event of a violation of the human rights provisions; whereas the accompanying resolution asked the Cuban authorities to allow European Parliament delegations to enter the country and have access to their interlocutors;

Removed:C. whereas in October 2020, the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that the arbitrary detentions that have occurred in recent decades in Cuba are not isolated cases, but are rather part of ‘a systematic practice ... in which ... the Cuban authorities have participated for decades’;

Added:B. whereas several articles of the EU-Cuba PDCA, namely Articles 1, 2 and 3, establish clear principles on equality, reciprocity, mutual respect, strengthening of contacts, dialogue and cooperation between both societies; whereas Parliament has requested that the EEAS do everything possible to closely monitor the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Cuba when applying the PDCA; whereas respect for human, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights is essential for the EU;

Removed:D. whereas the Organization of American States has denounced the fact that current attempts to destabilise Iberoamerican political systems have their origin in the strategy of the Bolivarian and Cuban dictatorships, which have financed, supported and promoted political and social conflict in the Latin American region;

Added:C. whereas the number of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Cuba has risen dramatically, reaching 1 066 on 31 January 2024, including 33 who were minors at the time of detention, an eightfold increase since 2018, rising by 170 in the last 12 months, equivalent to a monthly average of more than 14 politically motivated detentions; whereas human rights organisations have also documented more than 11 000 cases of ‘pre criminal’ convictions with average sentences of 2 years and 10 months without any crime having been committed or attempted , a number reported by the Speaker of the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) in April 2022 in the Concluding verbal observations at the 73rd Session of the CAT Periodic Review on Cuba; whereas in the past decades, Article 72 of the Cuban Civil Code has permitted an average of 3 850 new ‘pre-criminal’ detentions every year; whereas Articles 434.1 and 189.3 of Cuba’s new Penal Code build on the ‘pre-criminal’ measures contained in the Civil Code;

Removed:E. whereas the Cuban regime has persistently violated human rights for decades, including extrajudicial killings; arbitrary arrests and detentions; torture and inhuman treatment of political dissidents, detainees and prisoners by security forces; life-threatening prison conditions for political prisoners; lack of independence of the judiciary; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media, including violence or threats of violence against journalists, censorship, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, and enforcement or threat to enforce criminal laws to limit expression; transnational repression against individuals in other countries; interference with the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on the organisation, funding and operation of non-governmental and civil society organisations; and severe restrictions on religious freedom; whereas in 2023 more than 200 incidents of internet restrictions were documented, including hacking into the accounts of journalists in order to silence them and curb free speech;

Added:D. whereas the UN previously expressed its concern to Cuba about the detention and imprisonment of religious leaders in the country; whereas on 16 November 2023, five mandate-holders and rapporteurs of the UN Special Procedures sent Cuba a communication in which they described and condemned Cuba’s systematic pattern of persecution, imprisonment and torture of evangelical pastors and Catholic priests, Muslim imams and Yoruba/Santería religious leaders;

Removed:F. whereas in 2021 the people of Cuba took to the streets to oppose communist rule in the biggest protests since the 1959 communist revolution;

Added:E. whereas the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research updated in January 2024 the World Prison Brief reporting an increase in the number of prisoners on the island, placing Cuba second in the world in terms of its incarceration rate; whereas the Cuban Government continues to use arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate critics, independent activists, political opponents and others;

Removed:G. whereas many different independent NGOs in Cuba, such as the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba, of which the Patriotic Union of Cuba is a part, Cuba Decide, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights, the Women’s Network of Cuba and Cuban Prisoners Defenders, have denounced the fact that both Decree-Law 35/2021 and Resolution 105 criminalise counter-revolutionary actions that oppose, question, criticise and/or try to modify the model of the dictatorial regime prevailing in the country;

Added:F. whereas human rights organisations continue to document the ongoing crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association in the country and the Cuban authorities’ stifling of dissenting voices and targeting of human rights defenders; whereas in 2023 more than 200 incidents of internet restrictions were documented, including hacking into the accounts of journalists in order to silence them and curb free speech;

Removed:H. whereas in June 2023, the IACHR found the Cuban Government responsible for the deaths of democracy activists Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero in a 2012 car accident; whereas the IACHR concluded that state agents were directly involved in their deaths and that the Cuban regime had violated Oswaldo Payá’s and Harold Cepero’s rights to life, honour and freedom of expression;

Added:G. whereas the human rights situation in Cuba is deeply concerning, particularly with regard to vulnerable populations, such as women, ethnic minorities and the LGBTIQ+ community; whereas non-governmental organisations and independent observatories report an increase in femicides in Cuba, with the number of femicides rising to 89 in 2023 and eight new cases being reported so far in 2024; whereas despite this, the regime has not implemented a system for registering femicides in Cuba using up-to-date public data, and a comprehensive law against gender-based violence, guaranteeing the involvement of civil society representatives, has not yet been adopted;

Removed:I. whereas in May 2022, the Committee against Torture urged Cuba to adopt measures to prevent or stop arbitrary detentions, harassment, intimidation, threats and actions to discredit human rights defenders, as well as to investigate all the deaths that occur during any deprivation of freedom and to ensure the independence and impartiality of the Prosecutor’s Office and the judiciary;

Added:H. whereas Parliament has repeatedly reminded the EEAS that the participation of representatives of independent civil society in political dialogues and the agreement’s cooperation projects is an essential part of the PDCA, as stressed in its Article 36, and that excluding representatives of independent civil society from cooperation funds and/or participation in the agreement while, on the contrary, allowing participation and access to cooperation funds exclusively for companies in which the state participates or which it controls, as has been the case since the signing of the agreement, should be remedied immediately;

Removed:J. whereas in its resolution of 10 June 2021, Parliament reminded the European External Action Service (EEAS) that the participation of civil society in the political dialogues and cooperation projects under the PDCA is a fundamental element of the agreement; whereas civil society is being excluded from accessing cooperation funds and participating in the PDCA; whereas, meanwhile, only companies that the Cuban state controls or in which it participates are exclusively allowed to participate in the PDCA and access cooperation funds, as has been the case since the agreement’s signing; whereas the EEAS should decisively address this unacceptable situation;

Added:I. whereas on 2 January 2024, the UN publicly disclosed the letter of indictment sent to the Cuban regime accusing it of forced labour, one of the forms of modern slavery denounced by the Special Rapporteurs on Human Trafficking and Slavery; whereas several international organisations have denounced the fact that Cuban civilian workers serving abroad, including doctors, teachers, sailors, engineers, artists or athletes, are subjected to human trafficking by inherently coercive laws and regulations affecting very explicit basic freedoms, including Article 176 of the Penal Code, Mincex Resolution 368 of 2020, the Migration Law and Decree 306 of 2012;

Removed:K. whereas Parliament has awarded its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on three occasions to Cuban activists: Oswaldo Payá in 2002, the Ladies in White in 2005 and Guillermo Fariñas in 2010; whereas Sakharov Prize winners and their families continue to be systematically persecuted and intimidated and those living on the island are systematically prevented from leaving the country to participate in international events and events organised by the European Parliament; whereas political prisoners suffer from worrying health conditions, for example Félix Navarro Rodríguez (69 years old), Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca (61 years old), Carlos Manuel Pupo Rodríguez (68 years old), Miguel Díaz Bauza (80 years old) and Fredy Beirut Matos (65 years old);

Added:J. whereas the regime gradually imposed on Cuba rules out any prospect of democratic change, as Article 5 of the Cuban Constitution states that the ‘unique, Martí, Fidelista and Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Cuba’ is the highest political force and ruler of society and the state, and as Articles 4 and 229 establish the current political system as irrevocable;

Removed:L. whereas despite the fact that Parliament’s resolution of 28 November 2019 on the José Daniel Ferrer case urged ‘the EEAS and the Commission to actively support civil society groups and individuals defending human rights in Cuba, including through arranging prison visits, trial monitoring and public statements’, in no case has there been a visit to any political prisoner in prison or the observation of any trial of opponents, dissidents, human rights activists or independent civil society activists;

Added:K. whereas despite years of insisting on the need to visit the island, the Cuban authorities systematically refuse to allow official committees, delegations and some political groups from the European Parliament, international human rights organisations and other independent observers of the human rights situation, including UN special rapporteurs, to enter Cuba or to visit prisons;

Removed:M. whereas authoritarian allies of the Cuban regime, such as Russia, Venezuela, China and Belarus, maintain close cooperation with Cuba in military and security matters; whereas this cooperation also involves the Wagner Group;

Added:L. whereas on 23 November 2023, the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament authorised the sending of an ad hoc delegation to Cuba following a letter of invitation from the Ambassador of Cuba to Belgium and the European Union dated 20 September 2023; whereas on 19 December 2023, the Vice President of the Cuban Parliament informed the EU ambassador in Cuba of its refusal to receive Parliament’s delegation with the justification that it did ‘not wish to receive the visit of Members of the European Parliament who work against Cuba’s interests and are completely aligned with the United States’; whereas the Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba, in a letter dated 25 January 2024, addressed to the President of the European Parliament, referred to the President of the ad hoc delegation of the European Parliament to Cuba and two other members, as ‘maintaining links and supporting citizens and organisations included in the National List of persons and entities ... based on acts of terrorism’; whereas in November 2023, a delegation of the Cuban Parliament was received at the European Parliament’s premises;

Removed:N. whereas Cuba and Russia maintain very close, not only diplomatic, but also political, economic, strategic and military relations, as demonstrated by the meeting held in Moscow in November 2022 between Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Russian President Vladimir Putin, at which they stated that their bilateral ties were ‘significant’;

Added:M. whereas Parliament has awarded its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Cuban activists on three occasions: Oswaldo Payá in 2002, the Ladies in White in 2005 and Guillermo Fariñas in 2010; whereas Sakharov laureates and their relatives are still being regularly harassed, intimidated and prevented from leaving the country and participating in international events; whereas on June 2023, the IACHR concluded that state agents were directly involved in the deaths of democracy activists Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero in a 2012 car accident; whereas there should be a fully transparent investigation to bring to justice those responsible for the killing of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero;

Removed:O. whereas Cuba defines the Cuban-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for economic-commercial and scientific-technical collaboration as essential; whereas the Cuban regime has always publicly appreciated Moscow’s vote at the UN in favour of a Cuban resolution against the embargo imposed by the United States on the island;

Added:N. whereas the PDCA has failed in its core aim of improving fundamental freedoms in Cuba;

Removed:P. whereas in May 2023, the Cuban regime signed an agreement with Belarus to send special forces troops there, as a show of solidarity with one of Russia’s main allies in its war against Ukraine; whereas through this, the Cuban military will receive training, which implies that Cuba and Belarus will be strengthening their ties in terms of military cooperation;

Added:1. Regrets that despite the time that has elapsed since the entry into force of the PDCA, the situation of a lack of democracy and freedoms in Cuba has not improved, and that on the contrary, there has been a further deterioration and aggravation of the human rights situation on the island, in clear and systematic violation of the basic provisions of the PDCA;

Removed:Q. whereas in January 2021, the US Secretary of State denounced the Cuban regime’s support for international terrorism and the subversion of the US justice system;

Added:2. Stresses the obligation for all parties to fulfil the binding provisions of the PDCA and to uphold the principle of the universality of human rights;

Removed:R. whereas vast regions of Latin America are being held hostage by non-democratic regimes inspired by communism and operating under the umbrella of Cuba and initiatives such as the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group, which are hubs of drug production and trafficking;

Added:3. Condemns in the strongest terms the systematic human rights violations and abuses perpetrated by the Cuban regime against protesters, political dissidents, religious leaders, human rights activists and independent artists, among others; urges the Cuban authorities to immediately put an end to the policy of repression; condemns the lack of religious freedom in Cuba;

Removed:S. whereas on 5 July 2017, Parliament granted its approval to the PDCA between the EU and Cuba; whereas its approval of the PDCA was based on the clear intention to improve the dire human rights situation in Cuba; whereas monitoring and control of compliance with the PDCA are inconsistent with the current actions of Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) Josep Borrell;

Added:4. Is concerned at the alarming increase in the number of political prisoners, which has risen more than eightfold since 2018, making Cuba the biggest prison for political activists and dissidents in Latin America; calls for the immediate and unconditional release of individuals detained solely for exercising their human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly; further calls for the dismissal of unjust criminal charges and supports the facilitation of the return of those in exile;

Removed:T. whereas the PDCA includes a so-called human rights clause, which is a standard, essential element of the EU’s international agreements, allowing it to be suspended in the event of violations of the provisions on human rights;

Added:5. Declares it unacceptable that the EEAS and the EU Delegation in Havana agreed to exclude the Cuban democratic opposition and independent and legitimate civil society organisations, both European and Cuban, from political dialogues because of the lack of endorsement by the Cuban authorities; recalls its resolution of July 2023 in which it deeply regretted the fact that the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) squandered the chance to support democracy through Cuban civil society and the political prisoners and to send a clear message about the EU’s concerns regarding human rights violations in Cuba;