Mr. President,
The Twitter technology platform started a few years before the UPR and has doubled the number of characters. The Human Rights Council should consider how to extend the time for Member States to speak out.
We thank those who have participated in this dialogue and made recommendations, based on respect for the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs.
It is regrettable that some countries continue to manipulate the issue of human rights for political purposes, to justify the blockade against Cuba and the “regime change”. They lack moral authority and, on the contrary, are the perpetrators of widespread, well-documented and unpunished human rights violations; they undermine the objectives of the Universal Periodic Review and insist on selectivity, double standards and the politicization of human rights.
These practices, which in recent years have begun to replicate, brought discredit upon the now defunct Commission on Human Rights and forced its replacement by this Council. We will be on the wrong track if we allow these deviations to be consolidated in their work.
Respectful dialogue, in accordance with the principles of objectivity, impartiality and non-selectivity; and respect for the self-determination of each people to decide its own political, economic, social and cultural system and its own development model, are the essential foundations for international cooperation in this field.
We will examine in depth the recommendations that have been made to us and respond to them in September 2018.
A significantly small number of recommendations has an interfering nature and are contrary to the spirit of cooperation and respect on which this exercise is based. There is a curious recommendation: it is the United States that forbids its citizens to travel to Cuba and restricts their freedom to travel; it is the United States that denies Cubans, Cuban families, consular services and the granting of visas at its Embassy in Havana.
Cuba reiterates its commitment to cooperation with the United Nations human rights system, in particular with this Council and its universally applicable and non-discriminatory mechanisms.
We will continue to bring forward our "Socialist and democratic Revolution, of the humble, with the humble and for the humble", proclaimed by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz and inspired by the fraternal formula of José Martí "with all and for the good of all".
I thank the Member States, the Secretariat and you, Mr. President.
Thank you very much.