Programs: Science and Policy
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AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program
View Alerts By > Case | Date | Country | Victim
AAAS Human Rights Action Network
| Date: | 2 December 1998 |
| Case Number: | cu9714_men |
| Victim: | Desi Mendoza Rivero |
| Country: | Cuba |
| Subject: | Physician conditionally released |
| Issues: | Freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention; Freedom from exile; Freedom of opinion and expression; Right to liberty and security of the person; Right to medical treatment while in detention |
| Type of alert: | Update |
| Related alerts: | 22 October 1997; 23 December 1997; 14 April 1998 |
FACTS OF THE CASE:
AAAS is pleased to report the release from prison on 20 November 1998 of physician Desi Mendoza Rivero, who was released on humanitarian grounds due to his ill health and on the condition that he leave Cuba.
Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero, who was a prisoner of conscience and founder of the Independent Medical Association in Santiago de Cuba, was detained on 25 June 1997. His detention stemmed from statements he made to foreign journalists in which he criticized the Cuban government's response to the dengue fever epidemic. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero's forced exile is in violation of Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted without opposition by the United Nations' General Assembly on 10 December 1948:
- no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile (Article 9).
(Source of information for this update is Amnesty International. Previous sources of information include The Cuba Free Press Project; Reuters, 7 April 1998, article entitled "Freed Cuban Prisoners Plan to Leave Canada for U.S.," by Theresa Ebden; and Amnesty International.) No further action is requested.
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