Dissident ‘Demand for Another Cuba’ Presented

HAVANA TIMES — The promoters of the “Citizens’ Demand for Another Cuba” formally presented their petition on Tuesday in Havana, reported the Diario de Cuba.

“The campaign is focused mainly on the popularization of human rights agreements,” stated activist Antonio G. Rodiles, who was presented as the national coordinator of the initiative. Rodiles explained that the campaign has a “civic character” and doesn’t promote “any group or ideological tendency.”

The campaign also has four regional organizers: Felix Navarro (west), Librado Linares (central), Jose Daniel Ferrer (east) and Boris Gonzalez (Havana).

This past August 16, in the capital city’s Marianao neighborhood, police sprayed pepper gas on three members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba who were distributing copies of the petition. They were then roughed up and arrested.

The demand calls on the government to puts into practice those “legal and political guarantees” included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ratified in the Political and Civil Rights Agreement and the Social and Cultural Economic Rights Agreement of United Nations.