I also demand

I also demand
Posted on January 6, 2015
By Jeovany Jimenez Vega

For the mere act of having been born a man, to be thinking, already
implies in inalienable right to express myself freely without waiting
for the permission of another man.

Because my right of freedom of assembly and association are provided for
by international agreements recognized by the civilized world, and these
agreements are found to be above the decision of the dictators that try
to continue enslaving the mind of my people with its out of date
demagoguery.

Because the universal right of peaceful protest implies that the streets
and plazas that belong to all Cubans and not to that group that tries to
set themselves up as the only owner, that group that tries to monopolize
the street only for the "revolutionaries."

Because if a real revolution is progression, dialectical forward,
180-degree turn forward, then the retrograde breed that from the power
hinders the progress of my people today doesn't deserve anything but to
call themselves counterrevolutionaries.

Because more than 50 years of monologue from an undeserved altar already
was too much and today it is its turn before the jury of the people of
Cuba, to the betrayed, today has arrived, finally, the offended's turn.

For all this, I also demand:

That the Cuban government ratify and immediately and unconditionally
implement the International Covenants on Civil and Political Human
Rights and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights that it left pending as
of February 2008.

That the Cuban authorities officially recognize the existence and
legitimacy of the Cuban opposition, and consequently call democratic
elections where the entire spectrum of the plurality of thought of Cuban
society is represented.

That an effective separation of powers be established. In this sense, it
would be essential that the People's Supreme court, highest authority of
judicial power, stop being under the Council of State, highest authority
of executive power, so that the judges of the People's courts being
affiliated with the Communist Party of Cuba would be prohibited,
something that would favor their credibility in the impartial exercise
of justice.

Let it consequently stop the harassment, persecution or any type of
repression of any individual group that tries to express its political
position publicly and peacefully, as well as stopping the arbitrary
detentions of civic activists that represent a dissident proposal.

That the Communist Party of Cuba and Cuban State Security stop
organizing the sad infamous acts of repudiation, which are profoundly
damaging to the dignity of those that they perpetrate, as well as
unequivocally noxious to the public morality; consequently those acts
become considered as a body of crime by the existing Penal Code, at
which moment will be sanctioned under the law as they have always been:
authentic acts of vandalism, that include invasion of the home and/or
aggression and danger to persons.

That it establish an appropriate legal framework that guarantees a full
freedom of the press and total access and without censorship to the
Internet as means for the exercise of our freedom of expression, from
which all can, without fear of being punished for it, to propose a
better way of changing these ruins that we inherit in that nation that
we have, as the first law of the republic, the cuban worship of the full
dignity of man.

For all these reasons: #YoTambiénExijo

Translated by: BW

Source: I also demand / Jeovany Jimenez Vega | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/i-also-demand-jeovany-jimenez-vega/