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Cuban doctors (File photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
Cuba, May 14, 2019
NGOs: Cuba Enslaving Up to 100,000 Doctors, Other Professionals Annually
Original source
The communist regime of Cuba is actively subjecting tens of thousands of doctors, musicians, professors, engineers, athletes, and other professionals deployed on international missions across the world to "crimes against humanity," including "enslavement, persecution, and other inhuman acts," two prominent non-governmental organizations (NGO) revealed on Tuesday.
In total, the Cuban government has subjected "close to one million" Cuban professionals to crimes against humanity - namely slavery - the NGOs known as the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) and Cuban Prisoner Defenders revealed during a press conference hosted by the Organization of American States (OAS).
Last week, the NGOs filed official complaints with the International Criminal Court and the United Nations to hold communist Cuban officials accountable for slavery and other crimes against humanity, Blas Jesus Imbroda, the former President of the International Criminal Bar, told reporters.
Citing Cuban laws, workers' contracts, international agreements, and dozens of testimonies from Cuban professionals, the NGOs accused the island nation of enslaving tens of thousands of professionals each year, nearly half of them, or about 37,000, doctors.
"The figures vary. Right now, that figure is accurate. At times, the figure has even been higher," Javier Larrondo, the founder of Cuban Prisoners Defenders, told reporters, referring to the number of doctors.
"We are talking about 50,000 to 100,000 professionals each year subjected to slavery by Cuba including doctors, but also teachers, intellectual artists, musicians," he added.
"More than one hundred countries host these Cuban activities," Larrondo revealed.
Once overseas, Cuban professionals, by the island nation's laws, have no right to social life, no right to marry, no freedom of movement, no right to family visits, and no right to go back to Cuba without permission, the NGOs found.
The professionals are only allowed to keep between ten to 25 percent of the wages paid by the host countries while the rest goes to the Cuban government. They are also heavily monitored. Citing data about the Brazil mission, he added that federal judges had declared the Cuban government's exploitation of its professionals to be "slave work."
Cuba is a "slaver country," Larrondo stressed.
The NGOs noted that Cuban professionals are treated as the property of the communist state, adding, "Cuban professionals are considered in Cuban law as a special part of the population to have much less rights than the rest."
Cuban government officials argue that "free education is a debt of life that the government deserves back," Larrondo noted.
The Cuban government reportedly brainwashes professionals into believing they are privileged to be in their position.
"Once they enter the [ideological] labyrinth, they don't realize the truth until they live in contact with reality outside Cuba. Their feelings are confused for years," Larrondo said.
In Cuba, the government is the top employer. Money generated by the professionals accounts for the largest source of income (about $8 billion) for the Cuban government, the NGOs revealed.
According to the NGOs, Cuban law states:
The official or employee in charge of fulfilling a mission in a foreign country that abandons it or, when it is fulfilled, or is required at any time to return, and refuses expressly or tacitly to do so, incurs in sanctions of deprivation of liberty for three to eight years.
The law mandates a penalty of "up to eight years for trying to leave, or help in any way others leave the country."
Personnel from the NGOs surveyed 46 Cuban professionals and found that the communist government coerces most of them into going on missions overseas.
The vast majority also revealed they are required to keep attending "indoctrination meetings" during the mission.
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