14ymedio, Havana – Dozens of activists from the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) in Santiago de Cuba were arrested this Tuesday and on Wednesday morning when they tried to go to the funeral of one of their members. The detentions coincided with the burial of Maximilliano Sanchez Pereda, 72 years of age, who died Tuesday morning at the Juan Ambrosio Grillo Hospital.
“They set up several police cordons in order to prevent brothers from arriving to show their sympathy to the family of the deceased,” said opponent Ovidio Martin to 14ymedio via telephone. The visitation was held on Tuesday night at Sanchez’s house, “because that was his will,” he added.
Martin explained that during the day in the area of Palma Soriano “they arrested about 30 activists” and “more than 20 in the area of Santiago de Cuba.” They were all set free that same night, and the police warned them that they could not attend the funeral.
At dawn on Wednesday, near Palmarito de Cauto, another 35 members of the organization were arrested and “kept in an enclosed truck for hours in sub-human conditions, completely closed and without a bathroom,” said Martin. The same source says that on Wednesday afternoon, “they were all set free” although “they suffered arbitrary and in some cases violent arrests.”
The burial of the deceased took place Wednesday morning, and the activist says that at the moment of the burial there arrived at the cemetery “a truck full of paramilitary forces dressed as civilians pretending that they were community services.”
Martin thinks that the purpose was to prevent a cross from being left at the grave on behalf of the family members and activists on which appeared the deceased’s day of birth, the burial date, and the acronym UNPACU. “Right there a dispute broke out because the paramilitary forces pulled the cross from the grave saying that the abbreviation could not go there.”
Eventually the opponents returned “to put the cross in place.”
Translated by Mary Lou Keel
