GENEVA – Human Rights Watch and groups of Cuban political exiles denounced on Wednesday the difficulties they are having expressing their view of Cuba before the U.N. Human Rights Council.

“We have been surprised, frankly, at the long list of NGOs with an obvious closeness to the Cuban government and without knowledge of complaints about human rights violations on the island. Those entities will have the right to express themselves as (part of) civil society, and organizations with a long tradition and present in Geneva will not be able to do so,” HRW’s Julie de Rivero said.

The U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday is studying the Universal Periodic Review of Cuba, the evaluation of the human rights situation to which all member countries must subject themselves.

A dozen or so NGOs, previously selected, have the right to speak before the Council for two minutes and make their points of view known.

“It’s not going to be a transparent process and we must complain about it. The process is being manipulated,” De Rivero added.

Also, political exile Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramoes, a former prisoner of conscience, called the process “a complete fallacy, given that the NGOs who will participate have total complicity with the government.”

Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo, another former political detainee, said that Cuba has not ratified the U.N. Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “something that should be kept in mind and that should make impossible the presence of Cuba as a member of the (rights) Council.”

“They took 42 years to approve it and now we’re going to see how long it takes to ratify it. It should be indispensible and paramount that that Covenant be implemented as a prior step to becoming part of the Council,” Ramon Castillo added. EFE