Campaigns Against Homosexual Behavior
Thousands of homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, conscientious objectors, and dissidents were forced to conduct their compulsory military service in the 1960s at UMAP camps, where they were subject to political "reeducation". Military commanders brutalized the inmates. Carlos Alberto Montaner says "Camps of forced labour were instituted with all speed to "correct" such deviations.... Verbal and physical mistreatment, shaved heads, work from dawn to dusk, hammocks, dirt floors, scarce food.... The camps became increasingly crowded as the methods of arrest became more expedient".
In the late 1960s, because of "revolutionary social hygiene", the Castro government claimed to cleanse the arts of "fraudulent sodomitic" writers and "sick effeminate" dancers. Additionally, men with long hair were locked up and their hair was cut.
Castro is reported to once have asserted that, "in the country, there are no homosexuals", before in 1992 claiming that homosexuality is a “natural human tendency that must simply be respected.” Another source reports Castro as having denounced "maricones" ("faggots") as "agents of imperialism". Castro has also reportedly asserted that "homosexuals should not be allowed in positions where they are able to exert influence upon young people".
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Cuba
Famous quotes containing the words campaigns and/or behavior:
“That food has always been, and will continue to be, the basis for one of our greater snobbisms does not explain the fact that the attitude toward the food choice of others is becoming more and more heatedly exclusive until it may well turn into one of those forms of bigotry against which gallant little committees are constantly planning campaigns in the cause of justice and decency.”
—Cornelia Otis Skinner (1901–1979)
“No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by that word. It is every individual’s individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only. Whatever its symbol—cross or crescent or whatever—that symbol is man’s reminder of his duty inside the human race.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)