The U.N. Human Rights Commission passed a resolution Thursday calling on Cuba to invite the U.N.'s top human rights representative to Cuba. The resolution, which passed 21-17 with 15 abstentions, requests the U.N. high commissioner for human rights visit Cuba and then write a report next year. The resolution was submitted by the United States and supported by the European Union. Cuba angrily rejected the resolution. The socialist Caribbean country has been condemned repeatedly by the U.N. Human Rights Commission for massive human rights violations in the past. In recent weeks Havana has gone to great lengths to avoid being condemned by the commission again. Observers see the resolution as a measured rebuke of Fidel Castro's regime and an attempt by the United States to gain the widest possible consensus among commission members. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque called the resolution an act of the United States against Cuba. "The government of the United States has managed to push through an adulterated resolution against Cuba using brutal pressure and extortion," Perez Roque said in a news conference in Havana broadcast on Cuban state television. He also criticized Mexico and a few Central American countries that voted against Cuba.
