The ’14ymedio’ newsroom in Nuevo Vedado was without electricity for 106 hours.
Since that day, it has also registered a total of 68 protests. Of these, 12 took place after Rafael, hit western Cuba, on November 6, giving a total of 14 people detained. The most recent took place in Villa Clara, where at least eight people were arrested in Encrucijada municipality between Thursday and Friday, for a street protest that reached the headquarters of the Assembly of People’s Power.
One of those arrested is José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez, of whom, according to the legal NGO Cubalex, his family has had no news about his situation since Friday, when he was arrested. The independent journalist, a contributor to 14ymedio, has been harassed and persecuted by the regime since 2019, and which has him “regulado” (on a travel restriction list), preventing him from leaving the country.
In a communiqué published this Sunday, Justicia 11J – which has compiled information on political prisoners since the historic demonstrations of 11 July 2021 – lashes out against the informative note issued by the Attorney General’s Office on Saturday, which justified the “criminal proceedings for crimes of attack, public disorder and damage” carried out against defendants – whose number and names are not specified – for “acts of aggression towards authorities and inspectors of the territories which have caused injuries and disturbances of order”, and who have been remanded in custody.
The Prosecutor’s Office does not refer to the total of 18 detainees in Encrucijada, Camajuaní and Manicaragua.
The US-based organization expresses its concern precisely because the Prosecutor’s Office does not refer to the total of 18 people arrested in Encrucijada, Camajuaní and Manicaragua. In the last of these, six people were arrested for demanding they get their electricity supply back during the previous general blackout on October 18. Nor do the authorities refer to the young man arrested in Jimaguayú, Camagüey, for the same reason. The judicial body only vaguely refers to Havana, Mayabeque and Ciego de Avila.
In the records of Justicia 11J, explains the NGO, until now there was no information on arrests in Mayabeque, where a noisy “cacerolaza” (pot-banging) demonstration took place on October 19.
The initiation of these criminal proceedings, denounces Justicia 11J, “is directly related” to Miguel Díaz-Canel’s statements on social networks on October 20, when he stated: “We will not accept nor will we allow anyone to act by provoking vandalism and much less to disturb the tranquility of our people. And this is a conviction and a principle of our Revolution”. With these words, according to the NGO, he made evident “the continuity of the repressive nature against public expressions of discontent in the country”.
In Nuevo Vedado, Havana, where on Friday the neighbors had banged cauldrons for more than 60 hours of blackout, the pans were heard again. Amid the darkness, while other electric circuits around the neighborhood still had power, including the one at the Plaza de la Revolución, residents began a new protest with shouts and banging of spoons, which this time did not go unnoticed by the authorities.
The initiation of these criminal proceedings, claims Justicia 11J, “is directly related” to the statements made by Miguel Díaz-Canel on networks last October 20.
Shortly after the cacerolazo began, a police patrol car and an unmarked State Security vehicle arrived in Nuevo Vedado to silence the residents. In a video filmed from the 14ymedio newsroom, one of the agents and the other car could be seen advancing down the street, where the cauldrons could no longer be heard.
On Sunday around 3:45 p.m. the power briefly returned -it lasted 10 minutes- to the 14ymedio newsroom in Nuevo Vedado, after 103 uninterrupted hours of blackout, and three hours later the service was definitely reestablished.
Justicia 11J had denounced other arbitrary detentions in the town of El Eucalipto in the municipality of Ciro Redondo, in Ciego de Avila, where last Thursday the inhabitants took to the streets with cauldrons and chanting “put the current on” in protest for more than 24 hours without electricity.
One day after this protest, Adiane Hernández Calderón, Yordanka López González and Diosbany Almaguer were arrested for the crime of “public disorder” and transferred to the prison in Ciego de Ávila. However, the NGO protested that these persons “did not even participate in the protest” but the authorities labelled them as “promoters” because “they were photographed by government officials while they were observing the demonstration”.
In the Barreras neighborhood of Guanabacoa, Havana, Deisy Romero and her daughter, Yudeisis Diaz Romero, Keren Probance, Xiomara Llanes Armas and her daughter Aylet Maria Piñeiro Llanes and Rusbel Machado Perez were summoned after a protest over blackouts on Saturday night.
Justicia 11J stated that Llanes Armas and her daughter must appear this Sunday at Police unit 14. It also pointed out that Llanes Armas was “assaulted by Major Pavón (who signed the summons), while he was trying to snatch the percussion utensil [cauldron] that she took to the cacerolazo”. The woman has acute post-traumatic bursitis and muscular contusion, it concluded.
Translated by GH
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