Cuban Luis Luarca Garcia, who began a hunger strike on 30 January, was asked by the Government to end his protest after he officially filed a complaint with Cayman’s Human Rights Committee, Cabinet Minister Alden McLaughlin said Friday.
‘He has now formally engaged the Human Rights Committee with a complaint of violations to Articles 17 and 24 of the United Nation’s Convention on the Status of Refugees 1951,’ said Mr. McLaughlin, who currently also serves as the chairman of Cayman’s Human Rights Committee.
‘The Human Rights Committee will move swiftly to investigate the issue,’ Mr. McLaughlin said.
Mr. Luarca began his hunger strike in front of the government offices at the Glass House on 30 January to ‘protest the lack of respect for human rights in Cuba and in the Cayman Islands.’
One of the specific items of Mr. Luarca’s formal complaint deals with him not getting a job at the Health Services Authority as a security guard. Under the UN Convention covering refuges, Mr. Luarca is to have no less favourable treatment than Caymanians, which he feels in not the case.
Another aspect of Mr. Luarca’s formal complaint concerns the fact he had to write his religion on a job application form, which he says amounts to religious discrimination, Mr. McLaughlin said.
The formal complaint was lodged last Tuesday.
It was after the complaint was formally lodged that a member of the Mr. McLaughlin’s ministry asked Mr. Luarca to end the hunger strike.
‘I do not think the hunger strike (Mr. Luarca) has engaged is appropriate and I do not condone that course of action,’ Mr. McLaughlin said. ‘He could have gotten the results without undertaking those extreme measures.
‘We advised him that now that he has engaged the Human Rights Committee that he end that form of protest.’
Mr. Luarca has agreed to meet with the sub-committee of the Human Rights Committee.
‘Following the meeting, we will understand the nature of his complaint in very detailed terms,’ Mr. McLaughlin said, noting that the Committee only knew the nature of the complaint in general terms so far.
‘We don’t have any evidence on it,’ he said. ‘We don’t know, for instance, what he was told by the HSA.’
Mr. Luarca arrived in Cayman from Cuba in 1994 and was subsequently granted refugee status.
He initially made three demands that needed to be met in order to end the hunger strike, including a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI; monetary compensation from the Government for his failure to secure government employment during his tenure in the Cayman Islands; and an immediate improvement of the human rights situation in Cuban and Cayman.
He has since dropped the demand to meet the Pope.
Mr. Luarca has threatened to starve himself to death if his demands are not met. He has asked that police not to interfere if he should become ill as a result of his hunger strike.
Mr. McLaughlin said the next meeting of the full Human Rights Committee was not scheduled until 22 February, but that it could be moved forward.
‘We all know what the consequences of not eating is,’ he said. ‘We appeal to (Mr.) Luarca to end his hunger strike.’
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