Today: UN to Hear from Venezuelan Protest Leaders, Cuban Dissidents

GENEVA, – For the first time ever, the UN will hear testimony from leaders of the Venezuela protest movement, as well as from the survivor of the suspicious car crash that killed legendary Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya.

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The hearings on human rights in Venezuela and Cuba, organized by a NGO coalition as an official event inside the United Nations Human Rights Council, will take place today in Geneva, Tuesday, June 17th. See below to request interviews. The event is organized by the Geneva-based rights group UN Watch, and co-sponsored by German NGO International Society for Human Rights, Iniciativa por Venezuela, Human Rights Foundation, Humano y Libre, and Directorio. For more information on the content of the Venezuelan panel, click here; for the Cuban panel, click here. Eusebio Costa - 22-year-old student activist, President of the Student Center at the Catholic University Santa Rosa in Caracas. Member of the protest camp in Las Mercedes. Alejandro Suarez Teppa – 33-year-old activist and graduate student of Philosophy. National Board Member of the Active Youth Venezuela United (Juventud Activa Venezuela Unida - JAVU). Leader of protest camp in Stanta Fé. Julieta Lopez - Aunt of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has been imprisoned since February. When Ms. Lopez addressed the Human Rights Council plenary in March, the Venezuelan delegate interrupted her speech and tried to stop her from testifying. (See video here). CUBA "The Situation of Human Rights in Cuba—And What Really Happened to Oswaldo Payá"
 Ángel Francisco Carromero Barrios, Spanish politician, driver of the car in deadly accident of Cuban democracy leader Oswaldo Payá Regis Iglesias, Cuban poet, arrested with 74 other dissidents during the notorious 2003 Black Spring crackdown, Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. Exiled to Spain in 2010, he is spokesman for the Christian Liberation Movement

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