Why should we? I'd be surprised if there was one in the period under discussion. That is not to say there is no homophobia in Cuba. Rather, the absence of violent crimes against GLBTQ individuals, of the sort very common in Latin America and the Caribbeans, is of a piece with the general dearth of violent crimes in the island. It is well known that crime rates are low in Cuba to begin with,* again unlike the rest of the region, and physical gay-bashing is practically unknown in Cuba, as a Havana-based independent curator Pamela Ruiz reminded the non-Cuban audience on the occasion of the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition in Havana: "We don't have gay bashing in Cuba. We don't have Matthew Shephard in Cuba" (qtd. Steven C. Dubin, "Our Man in Havana: Robert Mapplethorpe," Art in America June-July 2006).
* <http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a773416348> Community-Based Crime Control in Cuba Author: Mark H. Kruger Published in: journal Contemporary Justice Review, Volume 10, Issue 1 March 2007 , pages 101 - 114
Abstract
Cuba has long had one of the lowest crime rates in Latin America and in the Americas generally. Incidents of crime against women such as rape and domestic violence, for example, appear to be lower in Cuba than in the rest of Latin America and the United States. Community organizations in Cuba play a significant role in controlling criminal activity by generating and sustaining citizen participation, generating an understanding of the nature of community crime, and helping to form partnerships for community policing. Cuba has attempted to obtain citizen participation in order to resolve social problems, including crime, by instilling a sense of community among its citizens and providing them with the structure of mass organizations that mobilize people on local, regional, and national levels. Residents attribute Cuba's relatively low crime rate to the sense of community created and maintained by such mass organizations. This article focuses on the role that mass organizations and especially Committees for the Defense of the Revolution play in the Cuban experience of community policing and justice. -- Yoshie