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Fidel Castro takes blame for persecution of Cuban gays

no-body

Well-Known Member
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11147157

The former president told the Mexican newspaper La Jornada that there were moments of great injustice against the gay community.

"If someone is responsible, it's me," he said.

In the 1960s and 70s, many homosexuals in Cuba were fired, imprisoned or sent to "re-education camps".
I have little love for Castro since my family was part of those kicked out with Batista, but this is very classy. I'm not incredibly shocked that Cuba is more ahead in civil rights than America.
 

Smoke

Done here.
Better late than never, I guess.

No American President would ever man up and take the blame for his unjust behavior like that.
 

Darkness

Psychoanalyst/Marxist
Better late than never, I guess.

No American President would ever man up and take the blame for his unjust behavior like that.

I'd have to see the whole interview, but it seems like Fidel Castro is taking blame, but not accepting blame at the same time. He is falling back on the defence that he was busy with other pressing matters, but as far as I am aware, he was staunchly anti-homosexual back in the day. Just from Wikipedia, I found: "homosexuals should not be allowed in positions where they are able to exert influence upon young people," and, "in the country, there are no homosexuals." Guess we know where Ahmadinejad stole his classic line.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11147157

I have little love for Castro since my family was part of those kicked out with Batista, but this is very classy. I'm not incredibly shocked that Cuba is more ahead in civil rights than America.

Oh, yeah....thousands of American boat people are bravely risking their lives to
desperately flee our despotic dominion for the civil liberties paradise known as Cuba.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
All part of America-derangement syndrome? :shrug:

The US isn't a bad place to be deranged. Regarding gay folk, I know many, & while some bristle at that marriage
problem, they still have a pretty good life here....as good as mine or better in some cases. Not one has expressed
to me his/her need to flee to Cuba for a civil liberties upgrade.
 
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Alceste

Vagabond
Cubans are attracted to the US because they can make more money there. Many Cubans have a great entrepreneurial spirit that can not flourish under a state controlled economy. It's nothing to do with civil rights, unless you consider capitalism a civil right.

Maybe you should look up what the US was doing to their homosexual citizens in the 60s and 70s before beaming down at Cuba from your high horse.
 

Darkness

Psychoanalyst/Marxist
Cubans are attracted to the US because they can make more money there. Many Cubans have a great entrepreneurial spirit that can not flourish under a state controlled economy. It's nothing to do with civil rights, unless you consider capitalism a civil right.

Maybe you should look up what the US was doing to their homosexual citizens in the 60s and 70s before beaming down at Cuba from your high horse.

From Wikipedia:

In 2004, the BBC reported that "Cuban police have once again launched a campaign against homosexuals, specifically directed at travestis (tranvestites) whom they are arresting if they are dressed in women's clothing."[10] This follows from reports in 2001 of a police campaign against homosexuals and transvestites, who police prevented from meeting in the street and fined, closing down meeting places.[11]
According to a Human Rights Watch report, "the government also heightened harassment of homosexuals [in 1997], raiding several nightclubs known to have gay clientele and allegedly beating and detaining dozens of patrons."[12]

According to the World Policy Institute (2003), the Cuban government prohibits LGBT organizations and publications, gay pride marches and gay clubs.[13] All officially sanctioned clubs and meeting places are required to be heterosexual. The only gay and lesbian civil rights organization, the Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians, which formed in 1994, was closed in 1997 and its members were taken into custody.[14] Private gay parties, named for their price of admission, “10 Pesos”, exist but are often raided. In 1997, Agencia de Prensa Independiente de Cuba (the Cuban Independent Press Agency) reported, that Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and French designer Jean Paul Gaultier were among several hundred people detained in a raid on Havana’s most popular gay discothèque, El Periquiton.[15] In a U.S. Government report reprinted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Cuban customers of the club were fined and released from a police station the next day,[16] although according to a 1997 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, many of the detainees claimed physical abuse and that two busloads of foreigners were transported to immigration authorities for a document check. The crackdown extended to other known gay meeting places throughout the capital, such as Mi Cayito, a beach east of Havana, where gays were arrested, fined or threatened with imprisonment.[17] According to Miami’s El Nuevo Herald, several of the dozen or so private gay clubs in Havana have been raided, including, Jurassic Park and Fiestas de Serrano y Correa.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
A former worker of mine could be best described as a "drag king". He would walk around downtown
in his 7+ foot tall glory (including heels & headgear) without any fear whatsoever. Somehow, I just
don't see that happening in Cuba....but maybe that's just my provincial perspective.
 

MissAlice

Well-Known Member
Better late than never, I guess.

No American President would ever man up and take the blame for his unjust behavior like that.

Frubals.

I don't see why our American leaders are above everyone else. Bush and John Ashcroft should've be tried a long time ago.
 

Scarlett Wampus

psychonaut
I wouldn't like to be a transvestite in Cuba either, given what I've read. Nevertheless, for Castro to call persecution of gays "a great injustice" and claim personal responsibility for exactly that in the 1960s is an important step towards a more liberal society and sends a clear signal that the no one should abide such persecution.
 

Quiddity

UndertheInfluenceofGiants
I wouldn't like to be a transvestite in Cuba either, given what I've read. Nevertheless, for Castro to call persecution of gays "a great injustice" and claim personal responsibility for exactly that in the 1960s is an important step towards a more liberal society and sends a clear signal that the no one should abide such persecution.
He didn't say that in the article but I'm sure he would agree.
 

Alceste

Vagabond
I find it hilarious that any event that happens, anywhere in the world, whether America is involved or not, instantly turns into an opportunity to badmouth the US.

Or to boast about the superiority of the US. Must be all that exceptionalism going around. Love it or hate it, every American knows America is the only country that really matters. :p
 

Alceste

Vagabond
From Wikipedia:

In 2004, the BBC reported that "Cuban police have once again launched a campaign against homosexuals, specifically directed at travestis (tranvestites) whom they are arresting if they are dressed in women's clothing."[10] This follows from reports in 2001 of a police campaign against homosexuals and transvestites, who police prevented from meeting in the street and fined, closing down meeting places.[11]
According to a Human Rights Watch report, "the government also heightened harassment of homosexuals [in 1997], raiding several nightclubs known to have gay clientele and allegedly beating and detaining dozens of patrons."[12]

According to the World Policy Institute (2003), the Cuban government prohibits LGBT organizations and publications, gay pride marches and gay clubs.[13] All officially sanctioned clubs and meeting places are required to be heterosexual. The only gay and lesbian civil rights organization, the Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians, which formed in 1994, was closed in 1997 and its members were taken into custody.[14] Private gay parties, named for their price of admission, “10 Pesos”, exist but are often raided. In 1997, Agencia de Prensa Independiente de Cuba (the Cuban Independent Press Agency) reported, that Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and French designer Jean Paul Gaultier were among several hundred people detained in a raid on Havana’s most popular gay discothèque, El Periquiton.[15] In a U.S. Government report reprinted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Cuban customers of the club were fined and released from a police station the next day,[16] although according to a 1997 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, many of the detainees claimed physical abuse and that two busloads of foreigners were transported to immigration authorities for a document check. The crackdown extended to other known gay meeting places throughout the capital, such as Mi Cayito, a beach east of Havana, where gays were arrested, fined or threatened with imprisonment.[17] According to Miami’s El Nuevo Herald, several of the dozen or so private gay clubs in Havana have been raided, including, Jurassic Park and Fiestas de Serrano y Correa.

What's this, a wiki war?

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries.[note 1][2] Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.

Wiki on stonewall.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
If Cuba liberalizes it's policies towards gays, does that mean Cuban cigars will no longer be straight?
 
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