HAVANA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th May, 2021) Cuba rejected the pronouncements of the Acting Assistant Secretary for the US Department of State's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Julie Chung, regarding alleged human rights violations in the country, the Cuban Foreign Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
"The statements of the Assistant Secretary of State, openly demagogic and interfering, constitute an imitation of concern for Human Rights while hiding the true purposes of the US Government," Johana Tablada, the deputy chief of the ministry's US department, said on Twitter on Thursday.
On May 25, Chung posted a message on Twitter, expressing the US rejection of the detention of Cuban artists for "exercising their freedom of expression," referring to Luis Manuel Otero and Maikel Castillo. The Cuban authorities charge them for generating disorders in the country and receiving financing from the US to destabilize Cuban society.
In response to Chung's statements, Tablada said that "the real objective of this type of statement is to divert attention from the serious violation of human rights that the Government [the US] commits against the entire Cuban population, with the insensitive and criminal application of the greatest economic, financial and commercial siege in history," referring to the blockade that Washington has imposed on the island since 1962.
Washington and Havana have had a strained relationship for more than sixty years, rooted in Fidel Castro's overthrow of a US-backed government. However, ex-presidents of both countries, Barack Obama and Raul Castro took steps to normalize bilateral relations, including restoring diplomatic ties and expanding travel and trade.
