• Submitted by: Juana
• Havana
• United States
• Politics and Government
• 10 / 14 / 2016

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Representatives of the governments of Cuba and the United States are meeting Friday in Havana in the second bilateral working session on Human Rights, the Cuban Foreign Ministry announced.
The delegations at the talks are headed by the vice-director general for Multilateral Affairs and International at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Law Pedro Luis Pedroso, and on the US side is the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski.
The meeting follows up on a previous one held 31 March 2015 in Washington following a proposal by Cuba, and it is in tune with the will of the Cuban government to exchange with the United States about any issue, including those where both governments find their differences, on the basis of respect and on equal grounds.
At the 2015 meeting, the Cuban delegation expressed interest in contributing to efficient and non-discriminatory treatment of human rights and stressed the need to observe an appropriate balance between civil, political rights and economic, social and cultural rights.
On that occasion, Cuba also expressed concern about the guarantee and protection of human rights in the United States, given the increase of brutality and police abuse on a discriminatory pattern, and the limitations of labor rights and trade union liberties internationally recognized, as well as violations of human rights in the so-called fight on terror, including torture, extrajudicial executions with the use of drones and extraterritorial espionage and surveillance.