Category: Laritza Diversent

Court Suspends Eviction / Laritza Diversent

Digital StillCamera

Laritza Diversent

On January 21 the Havana Court suspended Yamilí Barges Hurtado’s eviction, planned for March 22, from her house facing the Cohiba Hotel, as well as that of the heirs of the other partner in the house-swap in the east of Havana.

According to Barges Hurtado, a sheriff from the court of justice announced the decision to representatives of the state-run organizations in her neighborhood, at approximately 5 pm. The official said the court of justice suspended the eviction because of questions of security. “Nobody told me,” Bargas Hurtado said.

Eleazar Yosvany Toledo Rivero, 34, responsible for removing Yamilé from her property, was also informed, by a phone call from neighborhood leaders, of the decision. Supposedly the plaintiff told the court on January 18 of the impossibility of carrying out the eviction for lack of transportation. continue reading

The excluded heir asked the Court to nullify the swap undertaken by both families ten years ago, and for the right to occupy Yamile’s house facing the Cohiba. The court granted the property without acknowledging her.

Regardless of the court, he didn’t give up. He called the heirs of Rivero Dominguez heirs and representatives of the state-run organizations of the Vedado and Bahia neighborhoods, to a hearing on 25 January. “I wasn’t summoned” adds Barges Hurtado, who says the eviction is scheduled for February 5.

Yamile learned of the suspension by the heirs of the other property in the trade and neighbors summoned by the court of justice. “It is a psychological war,” she says. On November 15 the eviction was planned to occur and didn’t happened. “I can’t take it anymore, I have psychiatric problems, whatever happens,” she adds.

In Cuba it is not common for courts to order evictions. Evictions, called “extractions,” are made by the Department of Housing, after declaring the occupants of a building illegal. In the case of Barges Hurtado, the administrative body acts when the People’s Provincial Court recognizes the property ownership one of the heirs at issue.

The heirs of the other property in the trade plan to sue Eleazar try to demonstrate their right to the house and to stop the eviction. Yamile will be presented in the process as a stakeholder. She needs legal advice and only the lawyers affiliated with the State-run National Organization of Collective Law, the only one of its kind in the country, can represent people before the courts or state agencies. She does not trust anyone.

According Yamile she contracted the services of three lawyers to defend her. The first, Mrs. Clara Elena Diaz Olivera was bought by the counterparty, Ms. Alba Rosa Perna Recio. The others, on learning who was representing the excluded heir, gave up the case as a lost cause.

Barges Hurtado says there is corruption in the case because with the judge Dania Pardo Garcia, former president of the Judges Commission, there are friendly relations. “At the last hearing, the went to lunch together,” she says.

February 14 2013

What Are the Authorities Waiting For? / Laritza Diversent #Cuba

Caridad Reyes Roca and her daughter (Photo by author)
Caridad Reyes Roca and her daughter (Photo by author)
Caridad Reyes Roca traded homes with Ofelia de la Cruz de Armas in 2008. Three days later, the neighbor below complained about leaks from the bathroom. The wall and ceiling coverings were coming off. Caridad spent four years trying to undo the trade and return to her former property.

“My attorney was bought off by the other party,” she said. Caridad hired the attorney Yolanda Martiato Sanchez in January 2009. In June, without her consent, her counsel filed a notice of withdrawal that the Court of Havana accepted. Proceedings were closed. “I knew of the deception when I complained to the Council of State and they responded to me in court,” says Caridad. continue reading

“I complained, but the director of client relations at the Law Collective  Center of the Ministry of Justice said the withdrawal that was done behind my back caused me no harm,” she explains. In August, Martiato Sanchez had opened a new process for challenging the trade. But in February 2010 she was replaced by a colleague, Mr. Manuel Guzman. “As expected, the court dismissed the lawsuit,” said Caridad.

The judges felt that there was no absence of consent or fraud. According to them, the precarious state of the property was not hidden by the defendant. Now, the situation Caridad finds herself in is due to her “carelessness” and “negligent behavior.” However, to reach the ruling, it required a report from the Office of the Architect of the Community (OAC) of Arroyo Naranjo.

It was the same institution that, in October 2008, issued a technical report which according to Mrs. Cruz de Armas when she answered the complaint, accredited “the good technical condition of the property.” To date, Caridad Reyes has been unable to obtain a copy of that document.

Instead, at the request of Caridad herself, the OAC issued a new opinion in January 2009, with the result that the housing no longer met the requirements of habitability and therefore could not be considered “minimally adequate housing.” The document was signed by architect Elena Perez, Head of the institution and Caridad’s adjoining neighbor.

Cronyism, corruption

Elena Perez, chief of the OAC, is friends with Mrs. Ofelia de la Cruz de Armas, the woman sued by Charity; also because of the position she occupies, with attorney Martiatos Sanchez and the officials of Directorate of Municipal Housing of Arroyo Naranjo (DMV). The Havana Court however, ignored the conflict of interest and asked Elena Perez to appoint two experts to certify the construction technical condition of Caridad Reyes’ housing.

According to the report, the structural characteristics of the building were altered by construction that Caridad never undertook. “The heedlessness cannot not attributed to a fraudulent act of the other party,” the court ruled.

The fact is that in less than three months, the housing changed and no longer met the housing habitability requirements. This, however, did not suggest to the judges that the opinion of the OAC was falsified. Nothing made them suspect the architect, the DMV officials and the acting notary, nor the possible crime of falsification of documents.

But Caridad Reyes did not desist. She hired another lawyer, and while her appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court, she asked the Arroyo Naranjo Municipal Housing Office to nullify the resolution authorizing the exchange. The request was denied and the case closed. And Caridad Reyes Roca sued the institution. The former Havana Hearing Examiner declared her request without merit. Caridad appealed to the Supreme Court and got the same answer.

The same OAC, in 2012, issued another Technical Report. The property, it notes, remains in poor condition, but it does not specify if it is uninhabitable and irreparable. The construction is devalued by  4,356.15 pesos in national currency (from the value it had when the trade was made) to 2,678.16 national pesos

Caridad Reyes filed written complaints at different levels of government: Provincial and Supreme Court, National Assembly, Council of State, the National Housing Institute, Ministry of Justice, the National Organization of Law Collectives and the Attorney General’s Office.

No investigation got to the bottom of the matter or evaluated the risk to her physical safety and that of her daughter, even though both belong to vulnerable social groups. Caridad Reyes Roca, 65, is retired, and is responsible for Misley Lázara Suarez, 30-years-old with Down syndrome.

Their lives are in danger because of the unsanitary conditions of the home. The wastewater must be manually evacuated. They sleep in the kitchen because of the risks of collapse in the bedroom. Reyes Roca suffers from urosepsis and chronic gastroenteritis. She has difficulties with antibiotic resistant bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus.

What are the authorities waiting for? For the ceiling to fall on their heads? What will happen to Misley Lázara if Caridad is not there to care for her? Those who because of their ambition deceived this elderly mother of a disabled child didn’t think about that.

Cronyism abounds in the Cuban legal system.

Laritza Diversent

Translated from DiariodeCuba.com

21 January 2013

Academic Exchange on Law and Human Rights in Cuba / Estado de Sats

With the independent Cuban attorneys Yaremis Flores and Laritza Diversent (Cubalex), René Gómez Manzano (Agramontista Current), Antonio G. Rodiles (Mathematical Physicist) and students from the New York University Law School.


This video is 44 minutes long. There is a live interpreter translating the session into English in real time.

22 January 2013

Campaign for Another Cuba: Video #Cuba

This video is less than 4 minutes long.

Self-Portrait of a Hooker* / Iván García

It is Mayra’s first day on the street. The entire family is glad she is back. The atmosphere is very different from before, when she went to prison. Now her parents do not get upset when her eleven year old son tries to make them laugh with a stories about the comandante.

Her mother, with her back turned, laughs at the boy’s joke. Myra is astonished. Before, her parents were constantly monitoring her speech. Under no circumstances would they have allowed her to say anything bad about the comandante or the Revolution. They would become incensed and explained why she should be eternally grateful: “Thanks to the revolution you have a house, an education, you don’t pay anything when you get sick.”

Sitting in the patio, breathing the fresh air, she thinks back again to her cell, the bricked-up windows, the humid air, and a stench of urine and excrement. She blinks. She feels a sense of relief. Yes, things have changed at home. Her parents now complain about “how bad things are.” One by one they count their “chavitos”—their small change in convertible pesos—to see if they have enough to buy a liter of cooking oil.

Mami is now 65 years old. She is fatter, spilling over the chair in front of the sewing machine. She works mending clothes for the neighbors. Papi is bony and ten centimeters shorter than five years ago. In two more days he will turn 70. He is retired from the Revolutionary Armed Forces and gets a “chequera,” a pension of 320 pesos, some thirteen dollars. He also works as a nightwatchman at a business near his house. He cleans patios and makes some extra money.

It is difficult for Mayra to imagine that once they went to the Plaza to joyously scream their support for the Revolution and Fidel Castro. They dreamt of a paradise where there would be no social inequalities and the exploitation of man by man would not exist. They believed in the Constitution, which compelled them to memorize the passage in the Preamble by José Martí: “I want to see that the first law of our Republic requires devotion by Cubans to the full dignity of man.”

But when the “special period” arrived in the 1990s, fanatics like her parents lost their enthusiasm. They began to tell her to talk in a low voice when she complained about those scheduledpower blackouts that lasted twelve hours a day, or when she occasionally even complained about the supreme leader. Now they become deaf and dumb when her son tells them that his dream is to become a ball player, to be able to travel, to live far away and to make a lot of money.

Dreams like that take her back to Doña Delicia, a women’s correctional facility. Images come to mind of when she went to work as a “jinetera”— a prostitute —on Fifth Avenue in Miramar. Images of police, acts of solicitation, a danger to society and five years in prison. It all happened so quickly. So stupid!

“I don’t have a ‘machango,’” she told the police. “If I had given them what they wanted, taken the easy route, I would not have gone to jail. But I would not let myself be blackmailed and so off I went. Who would have thought this would all get so complicated? It’s because of that son-of-a-bitch policeman, who tried to force me to kiss him. He was so disgusting. No, I am not sorry. If it happened again, I would do exactly the same. Ultimately, life is a game of Russian roulette.”

It seemed to Mayra that she was seeing the face of her father at the trial, the same one he had when her mother begged him to make piece with their other child, her brother, a “marielito,” one of the more than one hundred thousand people who left Cuba in 1980 through the port of Mariel. “We were dying of hunger,” she says, “but my father always had his pride. Even when Mami was sick with optical neuritis and almost died.”

“He now receives remittances from Miami, ’the nest of worms.’ How funny. When I went to prison, he was the president of the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. A few days later he resigned. He got a letter inviting him to visit his family ’in the bowels of the beast.’ At any rate he learned that it does not matter what path you take if you are following improbable dreams. I only want to get out of all this shit. That’s why I understand my parents, their silence, their sadness.”

After so many sacrifices, the harvest of ten million, voluntary labor, the workers’ guard, acts of repudiation, meetings, militant marches, slogans and informing on the private lives of others, it has not been easy for them to acknowledge that Cubans today are worse off than in 1959, when it all began. It is hard to accept that, after 53 years of “socialism,” the promise that we would have a perfect country has turned out to be a lie.

Mayra is still in the patio, her eyes closed. Her hair dances in the wind. She gently passes her hand over the sun that is tattooed on her neck. She sighs, looking around her. With a handkerchief she dries her tears. She gets up and goes back inside. She is the hostess. She must be with her family on her first day of freedom.

*Unpublished account by Iván García y Laritza Diversent, based on an actual case.

Photo: From a report on sex tourism in Cuba, published by La Prensa de Honduras.

September 11 2012

Cuba in Elections / Cuban Legal Advisor, Laritza Diversent

By Laritza Diversent

This 5th of July, the State Council invited Cubans to participate in the elections of municipal and provincial council members and national MPs. This convocation inaugurates the general election, taking place every 5 years, to renew the positions in the Popular Assemblies and the State Council.

Now in 2012, 16-year-old Cubans will have the right to vote and to hold office. The Island’s population rises to 11,242,628 inhabitants, according to data from the National Office of Statistics (ONE). Of them, approximately 2,118,156, are minors.

Denied the right to vote are those legally declared mentally retarded, the imprisoned, those on house arrest, and those placed on work camps (open farm). Those who are on probation cannot participate in elections. According to the data offered by the ONE, the number of people prohibited or unable to vote is estimated at 562,202 people.

To exercise the right to vote, Cuban voters must be registered by the Head of the ID office and by the Interior Ministry’s Population Register (MININT). In the last election, there were 8,562,270 voters registered and 95.9% of those registered participated, according to the ONE.

In one of the first moments of the elections, voters will elect the municipal delegates, who are proposed, nominated and elected directly by the citizens. In 2007, 15,236 representatives were elected in the country’s 169 municipalities, according to the ONE.

The date for the election of the national deputies will be arranged later, according to a note published in the newspaper Granma. In 2008, 1201 provincial representatives and 614 national representatives were elected, according to the ONE.

Candidates are proposed by nomination committees composed of members of the Center for Cuban Workers (CTC), the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution(CDR), the Federation of Cuban Woman (FMC), the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), the University Students’ Federation (FEU), and the students’ federation (FEEM).

The Communist Party of Cuba does not participate in elections. However, most of the nominees belong to the only political organization in the country. Its top leaders are elected to occupy the most important positions in the State and the Government.

They are nominated by the 169 Municipal Assemblies that will be constituted once the municipal delegates are elected October 21, in the first round, according to the Official organ of the Communist Party. The second election will be held on the 28th, for those nominated who do not obtain more than 50% of the votes.

Elections continue to be the only predictable phenomenon within the Cuban system. The same number of candidates that are proposed and nominated, will be elected. And there is no need for electoral campaigns either. We all know that the First secretary of the Party, Raúl Castro Ruz, will be reelected President of the State Council and the Ministers, leader of the state.July 20 2012

Readers of Granma in an Angry Struggle Against Retailers / Laritza Diversent

by Laritza Diversent

Readers of Granma, the official daily publication of the Communist Party of Cuba, are requesting real action against the sellers of various household items, one of the self-employment categories most in demand by Cubans.

J.C. Mora Reyes, this last Friday, complained about the lack of governmental action to repress it, in the Letters to the Editor section on June 8. According to the commentator, along with the denunciation, the retailers have crossed a line: “What was sneaky before and supposedly ignored, now is known.” However, he asserted that “everything stays the same, thereby encouraging transgressive tendencies as something quasi-normal.”

“I’ve read, heard, and given many opinions about the resale of articles commercialized by the State with inflated prices formed only by the law of supply and demand and the pretense of innocence by those who should and are obligated to protect the consumer,” commented J.P. Granados Tapanes, in the same section.

The weekly section in Granma, in less than one month, published around 10 opinions of readers who were against the retailers. The majority of readers think these people are not self-employed and accuse them of strangling the economy for those who are working.

According to official data, before expanding and creating flexibility in the types of self-employment in October 2010, the sector constituted approximately 87,889 people, 0.78 percent of the population. Presently there are 378,000, and it is hoped that the number will grow to 500,000 this year.

Right now the category of Contracted Workers is the one most requested by Cubans. Next comes Producer-Seller of Food, Transportation of Cargo and Passengers, and Producer-Seller of Various Household Items (retailers).

“It’s sad to see how all types of merchandise, in many cases subsidized by the State, and other things that come from outside in hard currency, are for sale publicly at inflated prices with self-employment licenses,” comments J.P. Granados Tapanes.

Legislation prohibits self-employed Cubans from selling industrial articles acquired through established state networks. It also requires them to market their own products exclusively, with the possibility of freely setting prices.

Grandos Tapanes called the self-employed cuentapropistas “workers by means of extortion” and held them responsible for “the deterioration in the ability of any employed Cuban, no matter what his economic level, to buy things with his salary, which is worth less all the time.”

The solution for these retailers is a wholesale market, where they can acquire merchandise in quantity and at lower prices than those offered to the population in retail markets, only the ones legally recognized by the authorities. This is a problem that, according to the recorded guidelines approved by the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party, will be worked out before the end of 2015.

According to Mora Reyes, public denunciation doesn’t have any effect when “there exists tolerance, procrastination, inability, expediency, or defections on the part of the authorities in the application of energetic measures” against these demonstrations.

According to the reader, to go on the offensive is not something to be taken lightly. It’s “a pressing responsibility from the moment in which you become conscious of a situation incompatible with human dignity. Acting is better than talking,” is the conclusion.

There’s no doubt that the government’s inactivity in the face of these denunciations converts this section of the only daily newspaper into a national tirade. It airs complaints and laments without giving any solution, in the style of the accountability of the municipal delegates. However, the cuentapropistas are worried about the influence that these opinions could have on the upper echelon of leadership.

Translated by Regina Anavy

June 25 2012

Humiliating, Brutal and Cruel Treatment / Laritza Diversent

Laura Álvarez Rojas, a Cuban woman resident in South Africa, in less than nine months lost two of her loved ones. Her brother, Alberto Álvarez Rojas, a resident in the island, died last March 13th, in a car accident in that country.

“When I had not yet recovered from the pain of losing my mother, I found myself unprotected and enormously depressed at the death of my brother”, wrote Alvarez Rojas in a letter to some of her friends. She decided to take the remains to her motherland and share such a painful loss with her relatives in Cuba.

She went through all the bureaucratic requirements demanded by the Immigration and Foreign Department to go to the island. She had her passport extended, also had legalized her brother’s death certificate and paid all the consular tariffs. Last March 23rd, she left the African continent with the flight KL 0592 and landed in Cuba the ext day at 6.00 pm.

She was surprised when an immigration officer told her at the window, that she was not allowed into the country and did not know the reasons. In a separate office she asked them to check her name. In the year 2011 she visited Cuba twice without any trouble. She did not come to have holidays. Her mother was suffering from a terminal liver cancer. “You can not come in and that is all, your embassy in South Africa is the one responsible to explain the reasons”, answered the officer.

The officer tried to find out why the entry was denied. “Did you pay your tariffs at the immigration office in Cuba?”, she asked. “Yes, I did”, answered Laura. “Did you fight with anyone?”, she asked again. “Never, neither before nor later”, she rejected. “Did you visit some places?”, she continued asking. “My visits were to the hospital to transfuse my mother, to immigration and to the airport”, she refuted.

In a bag she had Alberto’s remains. “To the persons whose entrance to Cuba is denied, the luggage is not allowed”, added the immigration officer. “Ask the embassy to send the remains of your brother using diplomatic mail, she woman advised.

Desperate, she phoned her husband, a doctor who deserted and who had been working for approximately 10 years in South Africa, her sister who was waiting for her outside and the consul of her embassy. “Turn off the phone, you can not communicate with anyone else”, the officer advised to her. The woman “became furious and took my phone”, added Alvarez Rojas.

Laura insisted in bringing in her brother’s remains. “They saw me like a crazy one talking to all officers, I was locked in an office and some body took me by the neck, breaking my rosary”, she stated.

In spite of the mistreatment and physical aggressions, she insisted on her purpose. “I kneeled and begged to give the remains of my brother to my sister who was waiting outside, I could be returned, I did not care”, she insisted to another officer who was watching her in the office.

Laura did not make it. She was seated in the flight KL 02724 the same day, in the same airplane she had arrived. The pilot was told she was an illegal person for being delinquent in Cuba. The man was furious when the young lady showed her papers in order, the ashes of her brother’s and the death certificate of the embassy.

The pilot complained. It was not the first time it happened. “I was returned without a pre-ticket so that once in Holland I had to pay my ticket to South Africa again”, argued Alvarez Rojas. He refused to board her without the ticket and warned he would report Cuba through his airline, for the frequent abuse to its citizens.

The crew tried hard to assist her. “They made me feel like a person since the treatment received in my country was that of an animal”, she continues. “I was not carrying a dead dog, I was carrying a part of my Heart”, said Laura in a desperate attempt to find comprehension and solidarity for what had happened to her.

“They did not let me cry my pain for my loved ones, neither did they give me the right to hold my sister who was crying desperately on the other side and I was forced to come back here with the remains of my brother, unprotected heart, broken hope, and the biggest disappointment in my life”, she ended.

Laura insists on an explanation at the Cuban embassy in South Africa, although she knows there is no reason for what has no explanation. However, she is wrong when she says no one can understand what she feels. Cuban authorities treat many of its citizens like this. No doubt it is a cruel treatment, brutal and humiliating.

Translated by AnonyGY

April 25 2012

Conviction / Laritza Diversent

Once Cuban trials have declared a person’s guilt, they then order the destruction of incriminatory evidence.

Jesús Daniel Forcade Portillo, 29 years of age, and Ramón Echevarría Fernández, 40, were punished with 35 years in prison for the assassination of the jeweller Humberto González Otaño in the early morning of 14th September 2010, whilst they robbed his house of money and garments to a value of 206,193 pesos local currency.

According to the sentence enacted by the Court of Havana, after the robbery the accused gave a blood-stained blue denim jacket, exactly like that of Esther Fernández, the jeweller’s wife, the only surviving victim and sole eyewitness, to his accomplice.

Traces of his scent were also found at the scene of the crime. There was no identification by fingerprints or DNA samples. In spite of the technological advances, in Cuba, there are few cases where these tests are used, currently the most reliable, to confirm or destroy a person’s innocence.

The Law of Penal Proceedings allows crime investigators to order scientific tests when they consider them necessary. The courts for their part, don’t demand the tests be completed in order to he entirely certain of their ruling.

The court was fully convinced of Jesús Daniel and Ramón’s guilt. Their relatives, on the other hand, are fully convinced of their innocence. Betty Anne Waters, a young North American, divorced with two children, who registered at law school to take on her brother, Kenneth Water’s defence, had the same belief.

Her story was played by Hilary Swank, an actress awarded two Oscars for best female actress, in the film ’Conviction’, from director Tony Goldwyn in 2010.

In 1983 Kenneth Waters was found guilty of the murder of Katharina Brow on 21st February 1980. The attacker’s blood was found at the crime scene and his blood was found to be of the same type. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without hope of bail.

His sister, Betty Anne, became a lawyer and succeeded in reopening his case in 1999 after finding evidence which, according to the laws of the State of Massachusetts, should have been destroyed in 1993. The DNA test gave negative results. In 2001 he was acquitted after spending 18 years in prison.

Regrettably, Forcade Portillo and Echevarría Fernández won’t have the same luck as Kenneth Waters in spite of their relatives’ conviction. The jacket, a piece of evidence of the crime, was not found amongst the garments of which the court ordered a seizure.

They didn’t order its retention either. The accused assured that the garments weren’t theirs and their families stated that no garment had been returned to them. In these conditions it will be very difficult to review their case in the future and try to prove their innocence.

Their case isn’t the only one in which the evidence has been destroyed or has disappeared. In 2007 the Court of Camagey sentenced Delvis David Peña Mainer to 40 years imprisonment for brutally stabbing to death a young married couple in January of the same year.

The court stated that both victims’ wounds were caused by a left-hander, like Peña Mainer, with a short, blunt instrument. David was in possession of a mocha, a type of machete used to cut cane.

According to the sentence, blood was found in the ’inside part of the handle’, ’although it could not be determined to which species it belonged’ the court was told during the sentencing.

The Camagueyan Court was well convinced of his guilt and it seemed unnecessary to compare the blood found on the murder weapon with the victims’ DNA.

Furthermore they sent the mocha to be handed in to a job centre and ’the destruction’ of several of the couple’s garments with ’spots of blood’ and bloody footprints from the crime scene.

A different situation came with Rafael Ramos Utra, sentenced by the Court of Las Tunas to 20 years imprisonment for the sexual attack of a minor inside his own house in March 2005.

’There is no relationship between the semen present on the panties’ recognised the Cuban Central Forensic Laboratory in its first DNA tests, referring to the garment that the 6 year old child was wearing and Ramos Utra’s blood sample.

In a second test it was found ’that the yellowish stain on the panties’ of the minor matched that of ’her own blood sample’. ’It was not possible to establish the genetic profile of the semen present on the panties because the seminal material was used up’, the laboratory recognised.

The likelihood of finding two people with the same genetic information is one in fifteen million. In spite of the certainty of the first exam that proved Utra’s innocence, the Court of Las Tunas declared him guilty and also ordered the incineration of the panties, a piece of evidence.

According to data from the film ’Conviction’, in the USA 254 post-sentence acquittals have been given between 1989 and 2010 thanks to DNA testing. In Cuba, this possibility looks well off whilst courts, based on their guilty convictions, order the destruction of incriminating evidence.

Translated by: Sian Creely

April 18 2012

Rafters Defenseless Before the Whims of the Captain of the Port / Laritza Diversent

Julio Cesar Rifa and Roger Pupo Fariñas are completely without legal defense and they have no way to remedy this situation. There is no lawyer to be found who wants to oppose the Captain of the Port of Havana for harm wrought against their legitimate rights

On the 17th of December of last year, the authorities surprised them, together with four others, in waters near the coast on a raft that they had built themselves, in a failed attempt at leaving the country. “There had been bad weather and we decided to return to port,” Pupo Fariñas confirmed.

On the third of March of this year, two and half months later, lieutenant colonel Jorge Luis Aluija Urgell issued a decision that affirmed that the six rafters had committed a serious infraction. “They constructed a crude method of departure in which they later navigated Cuban waters without the permission of the office of the Captain of the Port,” as was detailed in the decision.

In 1994, by political decree, under the auspices of protection granted by international treaties (migratory agreements), the Cuban state decided not to criminalize Cubans who leave the country illegally by way of sea in precarious, usually homemade, vessels that put their lives at risk.

Nevertheless, the government, by way of the office of the Captain of the Port, prosecutes administratively when these departures are found on the coast or at sea, for violation of standards for possession and operation of departing vessels in national waters.

In Cuba, there is a system in effect that holds back on fines and other measures such as seizure and confiscation, for violations of administrative positions that don’t constitute a crime, so-called personal infractions. Up until now, the government has enacted more than 90 laws regarding misdemeanors.

There exist fourteen infractions regarding the possession and operation of vessels ready to go to sea, ranging in seriousness from serious to very serious, punishable by fines that start at 500 pesos and go up to 10,000 pesos and include confiscation.

Yandi Vidal Cruz Alfonso, 22 years old, Renny Leyva Risco, 26, Alexander Lara Céspedes, age 36, Ricardo Mera Brides, age 36 also, and Julio Cesar Rifa Rivero, 33 years old, were all fined three thousand pesos in moneda nacional*while Roger Pupo Fariñas was compelled to pay four thousand pesos.

A repeat violation in the commission of serious infractions, or infractions considered light or serious incurred at the same time, are punishable by a fine of three thousand to ten thousand pesos.

Roger has, aside from this infraction, 12 attempts at leaving the country. In December of 2006, he was detained while returning to the coast and interrogated by officials of State Security but was not fined. Julio has made five attempts and in four of them was not discovered by the authorities.

The Captain of the Port in his decision acknowledged that the rafters have the right to appeal his decision. The young men in this case sought legal assistance from the main office of the Cuban Legal Association, directed by Wilfredo Vallín, Esq. The lawyers of this independent organization drew up the wording of their petition.

“The declaration of December 16 by the Captain of the Port of Havana was issued after the deadline,” they maintained in their allegations. “This became an ineffective legal act for not having complied with the establishedformalities, in this case, the terms for the application of the declaration,” they argued.

The Captain of the Port refused to accept the petition. The lawyers of the Cuban Legal Association recommended that they not pay the fine. Still, the rules that govern the system of misdemeanors warn that in order to appeal a misdemeanor, one must first comply with and fulfill the terms of the penalty.

Fines are doubled upon lack of payment within thirty days following their imposition. After two months of non-payment, steps are taken for their payment by way of withdrawal from bank accounts, withholding of salary, pension, or any other form of income connected to the person being fined.

The rafters were not satisfied. Their most recent move was to request the services of a lawyer from the Legal Collective who would represent them in a legal case against the Captain of the Port. The Law of Civil Procedure currently spells out a procedure for appeals, within judicial channels, of the administrative decisions of State bodies that infringe upon established legal rights.

Julio Cesar Rifa Rivero and Roger Pupo Fariñas appeared at the main offices of the two legal collectives located in the Vedado and Arroyo Naranjo municipalities of Havana. They attempted to engage the services of four lawyers. All declined to represent them. The rafters assume that, perhaps, and only perhaps, the lawyers fear filing a motion against a branch of the Ministry of the Interior.*

Translator’s notes:

*Cuba has two currencies. The Cuban peso (CUP), also known as “national money” is the currency wages are paid in; one CUP is worth about four cents U.S. The Cuba Convertible Peso (CUP) is pegged one-to-one to the dollar, although transaction fees and a “penalty” for exchanging U.S. dollars, makes it the rough equivalent of eighty to ninety cents U.S. A fine of 3,000 CUP is roughly the equivalent of six to eight months’ wages.

**The Ministry of the Interior (MININT ) is the government agency responsible for law enforcement in all of Cuba. This includes the ordinary duties of crime prevention, criminal investigation and prosecution, immigration control, passport issuance, and extends into oversight of dissidents, issuance or denial of exit permits, and by way of the General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI), intelligence gathering inside and outside the country including the acquisition of technologies from outside the country deemed necessary for government operations. Its operations are said to be modeled after the East German Stasi.

Translated by William Fitzhugh

April 16 2012

Mothers of the Accused Threatened in the Case of the Jeweler / Laritza Diversent

This last March 23rd, two officials of the Department of TerritorialInvestigations (DTI) and the military Counterintelligence, respectively, threatened the mothers of the mother of Jesus Daniel Forcada Portillo and Ramon Echevarria Fernandez, who have been sentenced to 35 years in prison for murder, with a worsening of the case of their sons because of signs that appeared in Mantilla, a working class neighborhood of the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo.

“On March 20, there appeared several signs in Mantilla denouncing the injustice committed against our sons” explained Adelaida Portillo Heredia, mother of Jesus Daniel. “The officials wanted to know who put the flyers up and we don’t know anything about that” she added. The climate of tension in the streets increased with the arrival of the Pope to Cuba

Portillo Heredia confirmed also that the officials threatened to obstruct justice in the case of her son. “They told me that it was worsening the case if signs continued to appear, although I had contacted the police and the prosecutor and told them I was not going to be able to correct this, not even with the lawyer of the case,” referring to the possibility of filing an appeal of the sentence handed down by the Havana Court this past third of March

She also revealed that they had threatened Aida Echevarria Fernandez, the mother of Ramón with holding up her exit from the country and the return to Cuba of one of her sons who resides in the U.S.

The officials asserted to the mother of Jesus Daniel that the signs were all over the city and they showed her one. According to Adelaida, the flyers accused Esther Fernández Almieda, 60 years old and the widow of the jeweler, Humberto Gonzales Otaño as the person responsible for his death and of having paid the police, district attorneys and judges to avoid being incriminated. Also on the flyer, they asked why the families of the Five Heroes* appealed for justice all over the world while they could not and because no-one was listening to them, they would appeal for help from the Pope”

Portillo Heredia also affirmed that they had sent more than a dozen written complaints to different authorities motivated by the departure from the country of Mrs. Fernández Almeida during the investigations and asserted that she is recently overseas. The wife of the jeweler gave her declaration as the only eyewitness of the murder and surviving victim in the trial but the court did not ask her about her travel outside the country in spite of continuing complaints of the family members of the accused.

Translator’s note:

* A reference to the five Cubans convicted in a Miami court of being unregistered foreign agents and given long sentences in the U.S. The Cuban government has maintained a high level of publicity regarding “the 5″.

Translated by: William Fitzhugh

April 3 2012

Caridad Seeks Justice for Her Sons, Detained for More Than a Month, After a Brawl Between Ball Players in El Latino Stadium / Laritza Diversent

Josefa Caridad Contrera Mequeira, mother of 16-year-old twins Yoan Damián and Yordi Emmanuel Pardo Contrera, seeks clemency from authorities. The adolescents have been detains since last February 1st, after an altercation between players on the teams Industriales and Pinar del Río in the stadium Latinoamericano in the capital, which unleashed a violent reaction from the spectators.

The Havana team’s pitcher Odrisamer Despaigne, physically and verbally attacked runner David Castill, of the Pinar del Rio team. “Both were expelled, setting off a lamentable and enthusiastic reaction from the public,” reported official journalist Sifredo Barros in the newspaper Granma on Feb. 2, 2012.

Furious spectators threw stones at the Pinar del Rio team bus. Police from the 4th unit of Cerro, controlled the situation with dogs and sticks. According to the mother, the twins and their friends were left stunned, and took several steps backward, in front of the police line.

The youth’s intentions were misinterpreted. “Where are you running?” asked one of the officers, as he approached the side of Robín, a friend of the brothers. Without listening to his explanation, he took hold of his arm and lifted him into the police car.

Yordi Emmanuel tried to explain that they were doing nothing. The officer grabbed him, another struck him on the back with his stick, and a line of officers slapped him as he want to the police car. His brother voluntarily joined the group of detainees.

The event resulted in 62 arrests; three days later, the number was reduced to 6. Four are imprisoned, hoping for justice, accused of disorderly conduct, including the brothers.

Contrera Mequeira feels cheated. Captain Yuniel Batista, of the penal instruction unit of Acosta in 10 de Octubre, assured the detainees’ families that they would be released soon. He also told them it wasn’t necessary to hire an attorney.

Days later, he informed them that the local prosecutor would take them to court and that they should seek legal representation. However, he told them again not to worry, because disorderly conduct is a minor infraction.

If found guilty, the brothers could face loss of their freedom for up to 3 years and a fine up to 50,000 pesos. They could also impose other penalties. Although both are students and don’t have prior convictions, the authorities failed to grant them bail, and keep them shut in a prison for youth in the city of Cotorro.

Translated by Susan Fuller

March 10 2012

Tracey Eaton’s Interview with Laritza Diversent

Tracey Eaton, a Florida-based journalist, has been traveling to Cuba for a long time, and more recently has been undertaking a series of interviews with Cubans ranging all across the ideological spectrum. He has now begun the work of subtitling these videos in English.

Here are links to Tracey’s blogs/sites: Along the Malecon; Cuba Money Project; Videos on Cuba Money Project; Video Transcripts; Along the Malecon News Updates.

Resonance / Laritza Diversent

Cuba, the little island difficult to locate in the Caribbean Sea and the big booty in the new world order. Often I hear that it is under siege by the voracious appetite of the empire, its eternal enemy. Other big powers in the great Europe also lurk for prey.

A nice opening for a fiction novel.However, we Cubans feel we are at the center of the world, thanks to the eagerness of the socialist government for persecution. “The little besieged nation survives the attempts to dominate it.” Lyrical and melodramatic. In reality, we are the oldest of the Antilles, but not as important nor the most well-known among the citizens of the world.

It is there where the problem lies of those who decide to say, from within and faces uncovered, what they feel and think. How can we make ourselves heard in this world, inside a great act that is called the Socialist Revolution, when the media does not allow us to use new information technology. How can we show up the other side of the system and with angered eyes of repression?

It’s not a question of patriotism. It’s necessity. The human being is nothing without self-expression. Nevertheless, the problem remains.How can we make the world listen when we are surrounded by such obvious successes, free health care and education. Resonance is the only way we can make our voice heard.

Moving away from the methods, the positions, including the work of lobbying the diplomats and politicians, it is fair to recognize that in Europe and United States there are many people who help and multiply our voice, overcoming the differences in customs and languages. Also, its true that many times we don’t attach enough importance to or know how to appreciate the extent of this support.

On a personal level, I am thankful that they are where it is impossible for us to be, they help us get around the exit permit and conquer the borders of the Ministry of the Interior. Also I know that many of us hope for more. Some an aggressive Europe and other a less intransigent United States. Nevertheless, we ask for a little and nothing from ourselves.

That support achieves much more. It counteracts the loneliness when friends are afraid to share with you so that the State Security doesn’t place a mark on them. Only God knows how many times I asked myself, if what I do really is worthwhile. The attention of the outside world feels like a pat on the back, that keeps us from surrendering.

The interest and help from the outside world, in my opinion is an important factor in our struggle for freedom. It shows, as if we, ourselves, were the other side of the coin: the beatings that the Ladies in White received, the arbitrary detentions, the conditions of political prisoners, the persecution of news reporters, the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo and most recently of Laura Pollán.

The part that touches me, I not only am thankful, I also admire those in the outside world who morally and materially support the Cuban dissidents. Especially so to those, knowing the risk, who come to Cuba and contact us.

I am not interested in the background if there is one, for me it is pure altruism. If another were in my situation I don’t know if I would be interested in those who endure repression in this world and, regretfully, there is no shortage. For that reason, I am extremely thankful to those in the outside world who make the voice of the Cuban dissidence resonate.

Translated by: BW

January 31 2012