After Being Released from Villa Marista, Activist Yasmany Gonzlaez Laments the Cowardice of Cubans

Yasmany González Valdés was arrested last Thursday as part of the police operations around the date of May 1. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana 2 May 2022 — The activist Yasmany González Valdés announced this Monday that he will stop posting on social networks after being released this Sunday after four days in Villa Marista, the State Security headquarters in Havana. The young man was arrested last Thursday as part of the police operations around May 1st, Cuba’s Labor Day.

“I’m already at home with my family (…) I’m going to quit, caballero, because nobody knows what a family member goes through when you’re in there,” González wrote on his Facebook account a few hours after his release. The activist lamented the lack of solidarity of the Cuban population with the dissidents.

The young man, who works as a self-employed bricklayer, gave as an example the well-known activist Carlos Ernesto Díaz González (known on social networks as Ktivo Disidente), who on April 28 climbed a wall on San Rafael Boulevard in La Havana and asked for freedom for Cubans, but received no support from the people.

“There’s nothing clearer than the video of Ktivo asking for freedom all by himself and people telling him: ’Shut up!’ This goes for the opponents and for the whole world, Ktivo is in prison for lack of support, so draw your own conclusions.”

Last Saturday, González’s wife was able to send him some personal hygiene products in Villa Marista, as confirmed to 14ymedio. The guards did not specify, at that time, if the activist was going to be prosecuted for any crime and limited themselves to announcing to his wife that he could visit the detainee next Wednesday if he was still under arrest by then.

This is not the first run-in that González has had with the political police. On April 12, he was fined with the application of Decree Law 370 for his publications on social networks in which he frequently denounces the violations of human rights on the Island and demands the release of those sentenced for the protests of July 11th.

According to the Inventory Project, on that occasion González was summoned to the National Revolutionary Police, “they took him to a cell and after a while, they took him to a room before a State Security officer and two inspectors from the Ministry of Communications of Cuba,” where they applied a fine of 3,000 pesos.

“Several of my publications were printed. They told me that my posts and videos incited violence and that if I did another one they would prosecute me,” Yasmany González told Proyecto Inventario. This mason’s fine is number 56 imposed by Decree 370, according to the records published by the Inventory Project.

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