Speaking at the High Level Segment of the 58th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, the Cuban foreign minister warned that “the right to life is in grave danger.”

The intention is to impose economic coercion and political subversion as methods of international relations, Rodríguez Parrilla said before the plenary, which he called to “advocate more strongly a fair and democratic international order, which guarantees peace and “the balance of the world.”

Later, he described this mechanism as “an important tool for the promotion and defense of human rights without manipulation, politicization, selectivity or double standards.

We observe with concern the advance of conservative and neo-fascist platforms, and how developed countries experience a decades-long setback in fundamental rights, including women’s equality, sexual and reproductive rights, and the rights of Afro-descendants, ethnic minorities and migrants, he added.

The attempts by Western countries to turn this Council into a repressor against countries that do not subordinate themselves to their interests are unacceptable and endanger its credibility and existence. The disastrous history of the imploded Commission on Human Rights must not be repeated, Rodríguez Parrilla pointed out.

He described the United States as an active accomplice to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and denounced that the US Government implements a policy of maximum pressure against Cuba, deteriorating the consumption, income and standard of living of Cuban families.

We thank all 123 States that, last July, spoke out in this Council against Cuba’s inclusion on the State Department’s spurious list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism, he said.

We will defend our sovereignty and the socialist state of law and social justice, emphasized the head of Cuban diplomacy, who noted that his country will always defend “the principles of universality, indivisibility, objectivity and non-selectivity in the treatment of human rights.

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