Translator: Silvia Suárez – Page 15

Prisoners Defenders Identified 842 Political Prisoners in Cuba, ‘A Fraction of the Actual Total’

A group protesting the Cuban Government in front of Spain’s Congress, this past September 8th in Madrid. (Europa Press)

EUROPA PRESS/14ymedio, Madrid, January 4th, 2022 — On Tuesday, Cuban Prisoners Defenders denounced that in 2021 a total of 955 people have been included in their list of political prisoners, they also alerted that the figure “is only a fraction” of the total.

In a report, the organization detailed that in January 2021 it was aware of 138 political prisoners and that from then until the end of December, another 817 political prisoners have been added.

Currently, 842 remain, according to Prisoners Defenders who reiterated that this number constitutes between 40% and 50% of the real number, the verification of which “simply cannot be accomplished” by any organization.

Of these 842 cases, 700 correspond to the repression of 11J (July 11) and 15N (November 15) in Cuba, “an estimate 40% lower than the total generated by the wave of repression, as it is impossible to know the cases among the population,” they emphasized. Of the total, 107 are women.

Among them, are included 26 minors–aged 14 to 17 years–and 50% of them, 13 minors, are accused of sedition. In all, 132 verified political prisoners have been processed and charged with sedition, according to the organization, which stated that 387 have already been sentenced; 137 received sentences longer than 10 years in prison. continue reading

The 842 verified political prisoners are divided into Convicts of Conscience, Convicted Persons of Conscience, and others.

“Convicts of conscience” number 545 and Prisoners Defenders highlights that they are imprisoned “only for reasons of conscience, that is, for strictly exercising their most fundamental human rights, with charges that are proven false and fabricated, or of a non-criminal nature, absolutely related to their way of thinking.”

A total of 205 are Convicted Persons of Conscience, “who are subjected to prosecutorial processes or judicial sentences of forced domestic labor, measures that limit their freedom, conditional release under threat and other limitations to their freedom, including those that are subject to firm sentences which are not executed.”

In this regard, they indicate that the Government of Cuba, “in addition, habitually revokes these and imprisons activists who do not cease their pro-democracy activities, as we have seen month after month for years.”

Lastly, another 92, “Other Political Prisoners,” do not fit squarely into any of the aforementioned categories, but are held in a political prison.

Translator: Silvia Suárez

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Cuba Archive Demands Justice and Freedom for Prisoners on the 63rd Anniversary of the Revolution

A young man is arrested by police and State Security agents during the July 11th protests in Havana. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 2 January 2022 –This Saturday, the organization Archivo Cuba (Cuba Archive) launched a petition on Change.org in solidarity with the Island, in which they demand justice for the July 11th prisoners and freedom for the Cuban people.

The initiative was published, intentionally, on the first of January, the sixty-third anniversary of the Revolution, “the regime which has unleashed fierce injustice, repression, misery, and desperation upon the Cuban people,” said the Miami-based NGO in a statement shared Saturday.

In it, they request “three minutes”, the time it takes to read and sign the petition on Change.org, “for 63 years of dictatorship.” They celebrated that another initiative on the same platform, one which advocated for reducing the sentence of Cuban truck driver Rogel Aguilera, sentenced to 110 years in prison in the United States for an accident in which four people died, had resonated and that finally, Colorado’s governor, Jarid Polis, reduced the young man’s sentence to 10 years. “Evidently people sympathize with victims of injustice,” offered the organization led by María Werlau.

The petition states that faced with “the largest public anti-government demonstrations in the last half-century” in Cuba, on July 11th, with thousands of citizens spontaneously demanding freedom and improved living conditions, the Cuban State responded with “fierce repression: arbitrary arrests, trials without due process, layoffs from work, forced exile, and all sorts of persecution and threats.” continue reading

At the same time, they considered the work of the Work Group for J11 Justice, which reported “at least” 1,334 detentions on that day, including 45 minors between 14 and 17 years of age, and 708 people remain incarcerated. “Around 200 have been sentenced to long years of prison, many for up to 20 to 30 years, and hundreds more face similarly absurd punishment,” states the petition.

“Cuban laws discriminate politically in open violation of fundamental rights and thousands more Cubans are incarcerated for alleged common crimes or crimes against State Security and for ’pre-criminal social dangerousness’* [sic] with the purpose of maintaining social-political control,” denounced Archivo Cuba, which exclaimed, “It’s time for this to end!”

As a result, from the Cuban Government they demand, to begin with, the unconditional release of all political prisoners and the dismissal “of all judicial and investigative processes for political reasons.” In addition, they request information on those in custody, “for public demonstration, pre-criminal social dangerousness, and other political causes, as well as access to the public records of tribunals and detention facilities.”

They also request that the United Nations Special Rappoteur on Torture and international human rights organizations have access, for inspection, to detention centers on the Island, selected “without prior notice.”

Lastly, they demand the “dismantling of the repressive apparatus,” the “repeal of all laws and regulations penalizing the free exercise of civil and political rights,” and the “urgent start of a transition process toward a multi-party democracy that guarantees the free exercise of the people’s sovereignty under the rule of law.”

They also ask governments around the world to impose on the Island an embargo on the sale of arms and “equipment used to repress,” as well as sanctions on Cuban officials “including prosecutors and judges,” who lend themselves to repression, and that they cease any actions “that legitimize, fund and support the dictatorship.”

Finally, they request the international community send humanitarian assistance to Cuba “without intermediation of the government until it becomes a legitimate representative of the people,” and they conclude the petition with the motto of the protests, taken from the song with the same name: “Patria y Vida“.

*Translator’s note: ’Pre-criminal social dangerousness’ is the ’crime’ of being someone who may commit a crime in the future.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuba: Anatomy of Fear / Regina Coyula

For the women of today, leaders.

Regina Coyula, Havana, 23 October 2020 (Originally published in El Estornudo).

In 1980, I worked for G2 (yes, the G2), and I provided staff support to that gigantic “Operation Inca” launched during the events at the Peruvian Embassy. The first times I crossed the many throngs, vociferous and intimidating, where Fifth Avenue splits and opens up to the old Abreu Fontán roundabout, I felt the real possibility of physical aggression. Only after reaching the post of the entrance was I able to breathe easily. At Abreu Fontán, there was a concentration of citizens who would abandon the country through the Port of Mariel.

I, who am not one to wear T-shirts and never have been, acquired three of those “Down with the Blockade,” “Yankees out of Guantanamo,” and “No Spy Flights” T-shirts, each one with a corresponding image. They were my fragile protection to feel safe among the crowds. I was not deterred by my great and disarming fear of the wall of “indignant people” seeking their freedom. In the weeks that I worked in that beach spa, converted into a noisy, crowded, and smelly warehouse of anxious people, ignorant of their future, sustained only by their hope of leaving, I thought of the fear of the “other”.

I rejected the barbarity of the acts of repudiation, that amorphous and anonymous mass, which unleashed its impunity and its instincts, which baited frustrations and in collusion with the authorities, passed them the bill. I did not participate in any repudiation. The only one on my block was against a single family, quiet and decent, who never pretended to be in favor of the government. It was carried out by four vociferous women who had just arrived in the neighborhood.

Carlitos Berenguer, himself, received the derision for all those who left. He was, as far as I know, a mid-level government official; however, in front of his building on 26th Avenue, very close to my house, they built a stage with audio and lighting equipment. Every day, they organized a program, which included everything from loud songs to the worst references about his personal life. This was accompanied by gas and power outages and graffiti on the front door of his apartment.

I cannot imagine the hell his family went through and was ashamed for continue reading

them the one time my curiosity detained me there. I recognized in many of the faces the same rejection it inspired in me, but they did their part to appear neither too enthusiastic nor too apathetic. Spontaneously, those who were purely ideological took the microphone, they raised their fists and lost their voices during their diatribes.

To many of them, who today spit in disgust in the four corners of the world when anyone speaks of the Revolution, the fear of being unmasked accompanies them, and that also must be a very disturbing fear.

There were other cases less meaningful but which ended tragically in injury or death. I do not know if the data exist, 1980 was not the internet era, and much of that horror occurred unbeknownst to the world and even to Cubans themselves. I can understand hate eating away at them forever because, in life, there are strong blows. . . Even so, there were repercussions for the Government of Cuba. Retracting, after affirming that the people would take action; Fidel Castro declared the moral superiority of the people, putting an end, at least officially, to those shameful days of intransigence.

The latency of the method was maintained by the Rapid Response Brigades and during the “Maleconazo” of 1994, and especially so far during this century, against the peaceful opposition and especially against the Ladies in White.

It was my turn to closely observe the act of repudiation in 1993 against the families of my husband’s, Rafael Alcides’s, children. Hospitalized for months to protect my pregnancy, and three days after my C-section, the details of that grand performance and Alcides’s detention became known to me with time. The street closed off, cameras, loudspeakers, strangers taken from their workplaces to yell without knowing to whom or why they were yelling.

My own act of repudiation was missing. And I experienced it on December 10th and 11th of 2013 at the headquarters of Estado de Sats. Twenty years later, but the same methods: the street closed off, cameras, loudspeakers, strangers taken from their workplaces (and schools) to yell without knowing to whom or why they were yelling.

I do not want to focus on the repudiations, intrinsically vile. I want to focus on the fear. In the fear of blowing their cover and denouncing the degradation to which human beings were being subjected, those who on the previous day they greeted or perhaps they even owed a favor to the enemy. Of the fear that, like preventive medicine, they attempt to spread among an ever more indocile citizenry; of the participants’ fear of ending up transformed from the victimizers into the victims.

The fear of demonstrating my rejection at the “right moment and place,” the fear of being considered not sufficiently combative, the fear of not belonging. The fear at that the time they surrounded the headquarters of Estado de Sats and I decided to cook to set aside my worries that my family hadn’t heard from me since the day before. Terrible thoughts enter your mind at moments like those.

This is not a story, it is only to call attention to a phenomenon that is creatively recycled, always with those hateful ones whose help further damages — if that is possible — the fragile social fabric. That is the fear that remains.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

Cuban Sissi Abascal’s Appeal is Denied and Her Six-Year Prison Sentence is Confirmed

Caption: Abascal is also a member of the Pedro Luis Boitel Democracy Party. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 December 2021 — Lady in White, Sissi Abascal, who participated in the July 11th protests in Cuba was transferred to prison on Monday, after a failed appeal of her six-year jail sentence.

Annia Zamora, the activist’s mother, suffered “severe chest pain” at the Jovellanos Tribunal in Matanzas, where the sentence was ratified, a family source told 14ymedio. At the moment, she is better, “she is stronger and recuperating,” confirmed dissident Martha Beatriz Roque.

Before being transferred to the hospital, Zamora told Roque that outside the tribunal “there was a great ruckus” and “policemen and many patrol cars” arrived. Sissi Abascal “didn’t even have clothes on” and “they took her just like that” directly to jail, added the dissident.

Abascal, who is 23 years old, was accused of assault, contempt, and public disorder for protesting in the park in the Carlos Rojas neighborhood, in Matanzas.

According to the legal document, the young dissident and member of the Pedro Luis Boitel Democracy Party was charged last September by Silvia Martínez Montero, a major in the National Revolutionary Police in the municipality of Jovellanos. The document states that Abascal yelled phrases such as “Patria y vida” [Homeland and Life], “down with the Castros” and “down with the Revolution,” and that she urged “the area’s population to join her.” continue reading

From that moment, the 23-year old has been under house arrest. “They are fabricating these crimes because at no time did I hit the official, Silvia Martínez Montero, and she is accusing me of doing that,” denounced Abascal at the time. “We were the victims. They kicked my sister in the head, they beat my mother all over, and my father was unjustly jailed for 47 days.”

“I am peaceful. I raise my voice and will continue yelling what I did that day: ‘change’, ‘freedom’, ‘down with the Castros’, ‘down with the dictatorship’, ‘Díaz-Canel, singao [motherfucker]’, ‘freedom for all political prisoners’, ‘long-live a free Cuba’, ‘patria y vida’,” she asserted in a post on social media.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Andy Garcia’s Lawyer Confirms His Transfer to Guamajal Prison in Villa Clara

Andy García Lorenzo’s family members went to the prison to ask about the activist. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, December 8, 2021 — On Tuesday, Cuban political prisoner Andy García Lorenzo, detained following the protests on July 11th (11J), received a visit from his lawyer at the Guamajal prison in Villa Clara, where he had been transferred last week from La Pendiente prison in that same province. The young man’s family had presented a habeas corpus petition before the People’s Provincial Tribunal last Monday to request information about “his physical and psychological condition” after losing touch with the activist.

“The lawyer was able to see him. He was there for a bit over an hour with Andy,” the young man’s sister, Roxana García, told 14ymedio. “We still do not have details about why he was transferred but he [the lawyer] told us he was well. He sent us word that he was neither mistreated nor beaten. All we know is that he was transferred to Guamajal and that we will be able to see him this Friday, which is visitation day.”

Family members still have no news about a trial date and stated that García Lorenzo did not participate in the protests some of the prisoners in La Pendiente prison staged a few days ago. From that prison, several sources had denounced to his family that an unknown number of prisoners were transferred and their whereabouts were unknown, a situation which was denounced by several human rights activists and Archipiélago.

García Lorenzo is accused of “public disorder” and “contempt” following his participation in the protests of 11J and for which the prosecutor’s office is seeking seven years in prison.

His family members have demanded the activist’s release on several occasions. On November 15 they stood outside of their front door, dressed in white, as a way of responding to the call for the Civic March launched by Archipiélago. Furthermore, they have created a support network for political prisoners and a Help Group which has begun to receive and distribute donations among prisoners. continue reading

“This group was created with the objective of providing economic assistance, through the so-called sacks of food and other initiatives, to political prisoners in communist regime jails for the 11J protests,” states the information describing the initiative on Facebook. “Today these guys are subjected to abandonment by the dictatorial Government. Let’s try to make their days less difficult under these conditions until our country is free.”

In a conversation with this daily, Roxana García explained that “we’ve already collected quite a bit of money,” and that, although at the beginning, they did not have much contact with family members of prisoners, they’ve been able to advance their objectives.

On the other hand, on Tuesday, we learned that the trial for Luis Robles Elizastigui, “the young man with the placard” asking for freedom along San Rafael Boulevard in Havana a year ago, will take place on December 16th.

His brother, Landy Fernández Elizastigui, told 14ymedio his mother received the news in a call from an official from the Provincial Tribunal fo Havana. Fernández stated that Robles has been in jail for a year and that, according to his investigative file, the prosecutor accuses him of “enemy propaganda” and “resistance” and seeks six years in prison.

Luis Robles is the father of a young boy who recently turned two. His trial was scheduled for July 16th, but was postponed due to the 11J protests. The activist has denounced from jail that he has been tortured and mistreated; he was declared a prisoner of conscience this year by the NGO Prisoners Defenders.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuban Activist Guillermo Fariñas is Detained and Taken Against His Will to a Hospital

Guillermo Fariñas was taken against his will to Arnaldo Milián Hospital, denounced his daughter. (@haisa_fainas)

14ymedio, Havana, December 9, 2021 — Minutes before he was to give a telephone interview to Actualidad Radio on Thursday, Cuban State Security detained Guillermo Fariñas, coordinator of the United Antitotalitarian Forum. “People from State Security came dressed as nurses,” denounced the activist’s mother, Alicia Hernández, before that same media outlet.

Fariñas’s detention occurred right after he and Berta Soler, both recognized with the European Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, delivered letters to the European Union’s (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, and to the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli. In these, they accused the EU of abandonment over the situation in Cuba and, furthermore, threatened to return their awards.

“The Sakharov Prize should be a commitment of all parties to never use diplomatic silence in the face of human rights violations and, even less so, in the face of crimes against humanity,” they detailed in their missives.

Thursday, after several hours without knowing the Cuban activist’s whereabouts, his daughter Haisa Fariñas located him at the “Pulmonology unit, bed 1 of Arnaldo Milián Hospital.” A place where, she stated, “he is being held against his will.”

The young lady used her social media to denounce that Fariñas has been “kidnapped” by State Security for “opposing the Castro regime.” The dissident was complying with continue reading

bed rest as recommended by doctors following his release from the hospital arrest to which he was subjected ahead of the march on 15N — organized by the online platform Archipiélago — which was thwarted.

Regarding Fariñas’s detention, the Cuban business owner and activist Manuel Milanés alerted that this method of detention is the same was used by the regime “on 15N, anticipating that tomorrow is December 10th, Human Rights Day.” He stated that the dissident ” is not sick.” The detention, he because, is because “it is no longer sufficient to have him under surveillance 24/7. They must kidnap him to prevent him from demonstrating.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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"Los Sin Derechos" [Those Without Rights], First-Person Testimonials from Cuban Dissidents

The documentary ’Los sin Derechos’ portrays numerous cases of repression and torture. (Screen capture)

EFE, via 14ymedio, Jorge I. Pérez, Miami, December 9, 2021 — The documentary “Los Sin Derechos” [Those Without Rights], “an irrefutable denouncement” against the Cuban regime told by about twenty dissidents, including an activist who was subjected to simulated execution, debuts in Miami for international Human Rights Day.

Directed and edited by filmmaker Daniel Urdanivia, Los sin derechos intertwines archival images, such as those of executions from the early years of the so-called Cuban Revolution, with testimonials from different time periods.

The first to appear is Ricardo Bofill, founder in 1976 of the Cuban Pro Human Rights Committee (CCPDH), who died in Miami in 2019.

“In many countries human rights are violated, the difference in Cuba is that (…) it is carried out from an institutional angle; it is part of the laws,” begins Bofill in the film.

Following Bofill, about twenty writers, journalists and former political prisoners offer their testimonials of why they were taken to prison and how they were treated by their jailers.

One of them is Annete Escandón, admitted to a psychiatric hospital where, as she tells it, they gave her electroshocks “in a very recent C-section wound.”

“It was necessary to collect, in a graphic manner, the testimonials of people who have suffered the violations of their rights as citizens,” Pedro Corzo, the documentary’s producer and founder in 1999 of the Institute of Cuban Historical Memory Against Totalitarianism, tells Efe.

“They represent different social strata and different generations, not biological as much as political,” expanded Corzo, also a journalist.

The showing of Los sin derechos, which lasts over an hour and includes some images filmed on mobile phones, will be shown on Thursday, the eve of Human Rights Day, during an event in memory of Ricardo Bofill. It is one of the 15 documentaries created by the institute.

For 78-year-old Corzo, who was “jailed for eight years for assault against State Security,” Bofill “provided context and concept to the reality of human rights violations in Cuba.”

“He was capable of synthesizing the idea and sharing it,” he said about the dissident who Amnesty International adopted as a prisoner of conscience in 1985.

In an open letter written in 1986, Bofill said: “We do not have anything to do with the CIA. We do not participate in violent acts. We have no weapons besides our word. And we will use it while we have a breath of life remaining.”

For Corzo, the toughest testimonial, for the cruelty it contained, is that of Gloria Argudín, “a very brave, older woman”, who suffered a simulated execution.

“I met a man who was subjected to simulated execution eight times, and he said it was one of the most cruel experiences one could have,” comments the producer.

“Near dawn they took me, barefoot. They placed me in front of the hole, with a machine gun they pointed at me and said, ’if you don’t talk we will kill you.’ I told them, ’kill me, it seems unreal you were born of a woman,’ narrates Argudín into the camera.

“She, who we expect will attend the showing, is one of the first women who took up arms against the Castro dictatorship in the Escambray,” says the producer.

José Ignacio (Pepín) Rivero, the director of Diario de la Marina, which was confiscated, narrates how the rebels “broke the copper cylinders that would be placed on the printing presses.”

“The first type of censorship was the media: to tell horrors to those whose opinion was against the revolution,” comments Rivero, who died in exile.

Rolando Cartaya, a former journalist for Juventud Rebelde, the daily created by Fidel Castro in 1965, told Efe that the documentary “bears a renewed validity these days.”

“The Cuban Government, discredited by the violent repression of July 11th, once again unleashed mobs organized by the political police against this generation of young people who laugh in its face,” comments Cartaya, who “paid” two years in prison for denouncing the “acts of repudiation” organized by the State in 1980.

“I wrote a letter denouncing the vestiges of fascism of that time. A traitor turned it in. I was summoned to the newspaper and from there they took me to Havana’s Central Park where colleagues and friends hung a sign and beat me,” recalled Cartaya, another interviewee in the documentary, from Miami.

According to a report by Prisoners Defenders shared this past Tuesday, 805 political prisoners and convicts in Cuba have made its list in the past 12 months. The NGO based in Spain has been able to confirm that 562 cases are related to the repression of July 11th in Cuba.

Corzo, who has produced other historical documentaries such as Zapata vive [Zapata Lives] and Boitel, muriendo a plazos [Boitel, Dying in Installments], insisted that “the historical memory does not involve working with relics nor with third-party accounts, but rather with the direct experiences of people.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuba: Major Physical and Psychological Tortures Against Jose Daniel Ferrer are Denounced

José Daniel Ferrer is not well physically and does not know how much longer he will be able to resist, according to his social media. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, December 5, 2021 — Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) coordinator, José Daniel Ferrer, is subjected to ever greater “torture, as much physical as psychological” in Mar Verde prison, Santiago de Cuba, where he is being held. As his sister Ana Belkis Ferrer, made known on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Cuban Prisoners Defenders (CPD) accused the Cuban regime of “slowly killing José Daniel Ferrer” with “sonic attacks, psycho-pharmaceuticals, preventing his family from bringing him food.” They stated that he does not receive “medical attention” and he is held “in inhumane confinement within four walls, without seeing the sun and in isolation.”

At the beginning of November, Cuban Prisoners Defenders requested the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, to intercede “immediately” in favor of opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer. They warned that Unpacu’s coordinator denounced “a constant noise in his head like crickets, sounding constantly in an unbearable manner,” which results in a constant headache.

Last Friday, Ferrer was allowed a visit from his wife, Nelva Ismarays Ortega Tamayo, with little Daniel José and his daughter Fátima Victoria Ferrer Cantillo. “The Raúl Castro and Díaz-Canel dictatorship allowed this second family visit to José Daniel Ferrer García in almost five months of unjust, arbitrary and criminal confinement.”

In an extremely arbitrary measure, they prevented José Daniel Ferrer Cantillo from seeing his father. It was understood to be “punishment and vengeance” for the young man “for going out once again to the streets demanding freedom on November 15th,” the day Archipiélago called for a peaceful protest, which was ultimately thwarted by the harassment and repression on the part of State Security. continue reading

In August, the People’s Provincial Tribunal in Santiago de Cuba notified Ferrer that he must comply with a four-year prison sentence imposed by the tribunal in February 2020 for “injuries and imprisonment” against a third person. The opposition leader was detained since the protests on July 11th, until that moment he had enjoyed a modified sentence which allowed him to remain free.

The tribunal considered the Unpacu coordinator to have maintained “an attitude contrary to the requirements he must meet” because he did not have a job and “on various occasions has adopted behaviors that are incorrect and challenge authorities in the fulfillment of their functions.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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The Families of Four Cuban Political Prisoners in Santa Clara Demand to See Their Children

The family of Andy García Lorenzo, one of those detained on July 11th, with a sign asking for the release of the young man from Santa Clara. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, December 4, 2021 — The whereabouts of Andy García Lorenzo, José Miguel Gómez Monteja, Liván Hernández Salazar y Carlos Michael, detained in Santa Clara for participating in the peaceful protests on July 11th (11J), are unknown.

“They were transferred to an unknown location without providing information to their immediate family,” denounced Archipiélago in a statement on Friday, noting that this occurred “in the context of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s visit yesterday to Santa Clara.”

Andy García’s family placed, on the rooftop of their home in Santa Clara, a sign demanding freedom for the political prisoner. “We hold the State Security responsible for whatever physical or psychological harm my brother or any other prisoner suffers,” denounced Roxana García, Andy’s sister, this Friday in a brief video.

“They must tell us where he is, why they transferred him, what were the reasons,” demands the young lady, who along with other members of the family led a protest on November 15th (15N) outside their house, which was met with a prolonged, state-sponsored act of repudiation.

Andy García’s mother also demanded a response regarding the whereabouts of her son. “You took my emotional peace but you took my fear, you are rats, cowards, this sign will not be removed from this house,” she assured. “I demand to see my son, as a mother they cannot deny me that right, I will not be silenced.” continue reading

Recently, Roxana García and her husband, Jonatan López, launched an initiative to support families of the July 11th political prisoners in Santa Clara. The project, also supported by activist and Archipiélago member Saily González, seeks to help defray the cost of the food taken to jail at each visit.

“There are many prisoners who have never received a ’sack’ as it is referred to in the prison,” explained González in a Facebook video. “This is not just about the food they might receive, but also about the support from people outside, from their family and friends.”

For the young lady, it’s important to remember that “those people have been jailed since July 11th” because “they were the ones that went out to face the consequences.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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The Cuban Conflict Observatory Documented 79 protests on November 15th (15N)

November 15th was “the first time in 62 years that the Ministry of the Interior, its paramilitary forces and the Federal Armed Forces found themselves in need of a complete occupation of all urban and many rural areas.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, December 1, 2021 — Threats from State Security and the deployment of the military throughout main streets in Cuba gripped the population with fear and thwarted the massive protests planned for November 15th (15N), but that same day, there were 79 protests in the country.

These were logged by the Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC) in its last report, published on Wednesday, which includes a video that provides proof of some of those protests, filmed in motion or shared as photographs on social media.

The Miami-based organization reports 353 protests on the Island in November, 75% (266) of which were motivated by demands for political and civil rights, the remainder (87), were related to economic and social rights, such as exploitation of labor, excessive fines, femicide, the poor conditions in prisons or high prices for the basic food basket.

“That the protests have continued is significant, if you consider the extraordinary repression exerted against the population, the exemplary trials with extreme sentences for alleged and inconsequential crimes committed on July 11th, the threats of terminating the parental authority of those who are jailed for political reasons, and the impunity with which paramilitary groups, in videos shared on social media, flaunted their willingness to exert violence against any protester using firearms and blunt objects,” stated OCC.

The slight increase in protests last month, compared with those that occurred in October (345), maintains the upward trend since the Observatory began monitoring them, in September of 2020, when they logged 42 protests.

“Especially since the Government believed they’d quashed the resistance from the cultural sector with the assault on the headquarters of Movimiento San Isidro on November 26, 2020,” noted OCC. Since then, they continued, several dates have marked the “growing ungovernability” in Cuba, among which are included, clearly, 11J, but also 15N. continue reading

The NGO asserts that day was “the first time in 62 years that the Ministry of the Interior, its paramilitary forces and the Federal Armed Forces found themselves in need of a complete occupation of all urban and many rural areas, through police operations, deployment of member of State Security dressed as civilians, acts of repudiation, messages containing threats and selective disabling of telephone lines.”

To dissuade people from going out, the document states, “the Government continues announcing arbitrary and excessive sentences (including those against dozens of minors) for the July 11th (11J) protesters, fascist beatings on the streets and in prisons, threats of terminating the parental authority of possible protesters, psychological torture of the detained and their family members, and also pressuring known dissidents to leave the country.”

As a result, it concludes that “the reference for deciding to whom the victory of 15N belongs is not the number of citizens that went out to the streets, but rather, the number of effective troops, police, paramilitaries and resources the Government deemed necessary to avoid a new July 11th,” due to the financial and political cost of that operation, which OCC described as “devastating, nationally and internationally.”

As an example, the NGO stated that the repression previously exercised by the Cuban Government resulted in November 15 being closely observed by the European Union and the UN Human Rights Council.

“The Cuban reality is not lost potential investors, and even tourists, whom the government wishes to attract,” they reason in the report. “Who is more credible and strong today? The government which can barely mobilize a few of the dissidents’ neighbors to carry out an act of repudiation? Or civil society, ever more alienated from the government and the current governing regime?” they ask, and follow with this assertion, “The government didn’t ensure its own future in November, it placed it at even greater peril.”

In the report, the OCC exalts the “successes” of Archipiélago since it was created, in August, among these, demonstrating that “the people were willing to join a civic call to action on 15N and that the Government had no response to the citizen unrest other than the most obscene repression.”

Nonetheless, despite the space dedicated to the opposition platform in the document, there was no mention of its most visible leader, playwright Yunior García Aguilera, who surprisingly left Cuba for Madrid on November 16th, two days after State Security deployed a strong operation and organized agg acts of repudiation at the artist’s own house, preventing him from marching alone, as he had announced.

The report also does not reference the regime’s evident strategy toward the most recent dissidents: forced exile. The most recent of these being controversial rapper Denis Solís, who traveled to Serbia via Moscow last Saturday.

In addition to García Aguilera and Solís, artist Hamlet Lavastida and poet Katherine Biquet also find themselves in the same situation, today in Europe, as are Tania Bruguera, Camila Lobón, Claudia Genlui, Alfredo Martínez and Eliexer Márquez El Funky, one of the performers of Patria y Vida.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Under Military Presence, 11J Protesters are Processed in Artemisa / Cubalex

Sentencing requests for some of the Cubans who protested in 11 July. (Cubalex)

Cubalex, 22 November 2021 — On November 22nd and 23rd, the judicial proceedings against 13 of the July 11th (11J) protesters are being held at the Provincial Tribunal of Artemisa. According to our sources all of the areas surrounding the courtroom are militarized. The police, red berets, black berets and State Security have organized a large-scale surveillance operation. For its part, the tribunal, in violation of established national legislation and international standards, has restricted public access and has only allowed the presence of one family member per accused.

Family members are devastated and discriminated against. Alarmed and worried due to the lack of media attention that these trials have had. To Cuban civil society, to the independent press, those who have business to conduct today at the tribunal, those who in one form or another can share information, we ask for your support to raise the visibility of the situation of these protesters and sensitize the international community. Let’s accompany the family members of the 11J peaceful protesters in these very difficult moments. Let’s not leave them alone, they need us today, now. Share the situation on your social media, if you have close neighbors in areas surrounding the tribunal, ask them to share information about what they are able to observe, including photos.

Justicia 11 and Cubalex condemn this and demand complete and immediate dismissal of the charges currently being processed by the prosecutor’s office, as well as the cases that have already been presented by the prosecutor to the tribunal, without trials. We request human rights organizations and those that protect journalists and activists to ensure the security of those within and outside of Cuba; who for their clear position of denouncement can become the targets of violence, harassment and repression by Cuban state and government bodies.

These are the names of those detained who are being processed: Javier González Fernández, Alexander Díaz Rodríguez, Yurien Rodríguez Ramos, Eduard Bryan Luperon Vega, Eddy Gutiérrez Alonso, Víctor Alejandro Panceira Rodríguez, Yeremin Salcines Janes, José Alberto Pío Torres, Leandro David Morales Ricondo, Luis Giraldo Martínez Sierra, Iván Hernández Troya, Yoslén Domínguez Victores, Yoselín Hernández Rodríguez.

Recommendations:

We continue to urge family members to constantly denounce these cases, based on the proven fact that raising the visibility has provided significant protection. Our political prisoners are not alone. We demand justice.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

In Prison, Osorbo is Punished for Expressing Gratitude for the Grammys Awarded to ‘Patria y Vida’

One of the audios sent by Orsorbo from jail was to express his gratitude for the Latin Grammys for ’Patria y Vida’.

14ymedio, Havana, November 27, 2021–Rapper Maykel Castillo Osorbo, jailed for the six months, had his phone calls suspended for three months as punishment. As art curator Anamely Ramos explained on Friday, the motive was the recorded messages the artist has been sending from jail.

One of them was the one he sent in regards to the Latin Grammy gala on November 18th, where the song Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life] on which Osorbo collaborated, won the two awards for which it was nominated.

Ramos stated that on Wednesday Castillo received a visit from his lawyer in the maximum-security prison of Kilo Cinco y Medio in Pinar del Río, after several days without news of the rapper. “This is how we confirmed that he is still there,” wrote the curator, a member, as is the rapper, of the Movimiento San Isidro (MSI).

“Maykel’s voice is unbearable for those in power, even though his body is imprisoned. With this, they only show their fear and how little authority they have left,” shared Ramos who stated that at first they punished Osorbo by denying him phone calls for one month, but when they called him to confirm the disciplinary measures that would be imposed, he wrote “Patria y Vida” below his name, for which the punishment increased to three months.

“A three word sentence is also unbearable to them,” denounced Ramos. “Three words have the power to leave an entire state without recourse, other than violence. Three words: each one a month of isolation for Maykel. They are shameful.” continue reading

Ramos insisted that Osorbo is “unjustly imprisoned” and sick. “Under these conditions, to keep him isolated is doubly grave. Now how will we know his state of health?” she asked.

“Taking away a prisoner’s phone calls for an audio expressing gratitude for a prize he won for his talent and his effort and which is a prize for all of Cuba (which does not belong to you), is a cruel act and an embarrassment in the 21st century,” she asserted, and then stated that the Cuban prison regulations violate “the Mandela Laws and are contemptuous of human dignity and life.”

Osorbo was detained on May 18th of this year and at the end of that same month was transferred to Kilo Cinco y Medio, a maximum-security prison. He is accused of “assault”, “public disorder” and “evasion” for what occurred on April 4th at a protest on Damas street in front of MSI’s headquarters, when police attempted to arbitrarily arrest him and he refused to get into the patrol car.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Fabricated Charges and False Witnesses Against July 11th Protesters in Artemisa, Cuba

Photo of People’s Provincial Tribunal in Artemisa. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, November 28, 2021–“Prepared testimony” and contradictions predominated the three days of trials against 13 young protesters in the Criminal Court of the People’s Provincial Tribunal in Artemisa, according to family members. “There is an extraordinary contradiction among the prosecution’s witnesses,” Roberto Rodríguez, who attended the trial, assured 14ymedio.

The young people, who did not have prior criminal records, have endured finger pointing and comments for participating in the massive marches on July 11th in the province where the first popular protests began. During the trial, the fabricated accusations were evident as were the false witnesses with which the prosecutors sought long sentences. The sentencing is expected within 15 days.

In Yeremin Salsine Janés’s case, he could be sentenced to 14 years in prison. During his detention and his transfer to the maximum-security prison in the municipality of Guanajay, the 31-year-old man received beatings, which resulted in head injuries, according to sources close to the family.

“It has been tense, inhumane and cruel to see, on the first day, one of the young men hav a panic attack because he didn’t have his medication, seeing his brother with high blood pressure transferred to the hospital in a patrol car. And then he spent a long, torturous night waiting until dawn to continue the trial,” relayed Rodríguez, speaking about the arbitrary nature of the processes within the People’s Provincial Tribunal. continue reading

For Eduardo Gutiérrez Alonso, who remains in provisional custody at the Técnico y Guanajay and faces charges for the crimes of public disorder, contempt and assault, the prosecutor seeks 12 years in prison. The trial against him has been plagued with irregularities, denounced a family member. The witnesses confirmed that Eddy was wearing shorts and a red T-shirt. “That is not so,” refuted a source close to the accused. “In the videos and the evidence presented, he is dressed in black and wearing slacks.”

The streets of Artemisa’s Provincial Tribunal have been militarized, stated family members of the young men. (14ymedio)

The tension of the first day of the trial was followed by intimidation the following day when family members of those detained were received with “militarized streets,” which caused the first shock. The second occurred within the courtroom, when pepper spray carried by one of the policemen exploded.

“The sad thing is that in our affected state, to evacuate the prisoners they wanted to handcuff them, then they removed them from the courtroom, washed their faces and helped them,” and one man with asthma required oxygen. That day one of the accused with epilepsy “suffered a crises and had a seizure.” We learned this person had already experienced a similar situation in prison.

Last Wednesday, after the presentation of evidence, the defense felt confident that, “the prosecutor did not have a case.” The defense pointed out the lies told by the prosecutor and witnesses, in which “the manipulation was plain to see.”

Family members demanded “freedom and justice” for Javier González Fernández, Alexandre Díaz Rodríguez, Yurien Rodríguez Ramos, Eduard Bryan Luperon Vega, Eddy Gutiérrez Alonso, Victor Alejandro Painceira, Yeremi Salsine, José Alberto Pio Torres, Leandro David Morales, Luis Giraldo Martínez, Iván Hernández Troya, Yoslen Domínguez, and Yoselin Hernández. They also demanded that authorities cease “the citations and persecution.”

To date, several independent organizations have documented 1,283 detentions resulting from the protests on July 11th and 42 convictions in summary trials. Of this total, at least 540 remain in prison.

In one report, the Cubalex legal information center, expressed special concern for “the use of sedition to impose exemplary sanctions on at least 122 people” and reported that prior to July 11th, Cuban Prisoners Defenders had registered 152 political prisoners.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Otero Alcantara Has Been Invited to Art Activities Outside Cuba

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of Movimiento San Isidro (Foto: EFE/Yander Zamora)

14ymedio, Havana, November 19, 2021–Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara reaffirmed that he “would not, under any circumstances, accept exile as an option” to leave Cuba, as he made known to art curator Claudia Genlui Hidalgo, following a visit from his family at the prison where he has been held since the July 11th nationwide protests.

However, the leader of Movimiento San Isidro (MSI), to which Genlui also belongs, continues expressing “his willingness to leave the country to participate in artistic and residence programs which had already been planned and in which he had committed to participate.”

Genlui’s clarification comes a few weeks after it became known that the Cuban Government intended to remove Otero Alcántara from the Island as part of the negotiations announced by Tania Bruguera, and which facilitated the exit of artists Hamlet Lavastida and Katherine Bisquet, who traveled to Poland after Lavastida was released from prison in exchange for exile.

“Yesterday, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara’s family was able to visit him in Guanajay, a maximum-security prison, where he remains since July 11th, accused of the alleged crimes of aggravated assault, public disorder, and instigation of a crime,” wrote Genlui on her Facebook page. “He is also charged with offending patriotic symbols, a charge imposed last year for his work Le drapeau,” she added.

His family also communicated to Genlui that “he is well, plays sports and is in good spirits, though he is very worried for Maykel Castillo’s continue reading

health, of which he was informed at that moment.”

Furthermore, she said the artist was well-informed of all that had occurred on the Island in the last few days and “reaffirmed his commitment to the Cuban people.” “Movimiento San Isidro continues to track him and all political prisoners,” she concludes.

One of the family members who visited him relayed to 14ymedio that Otero Alcántara maintains his same convictions. “Not for a moment did he appear to be lost or that the events he is experiencing have changed his view, not at all.” The source also noted that visits to the prison will occur every two weeks.

While Otero Alcántara has been jailed, he contracted COVID-19 and between September and October, was on a hunger and thirst strike for several days to demand his release and that of all political prisoners, according to a statement from MSI.

The activist has been detained on numerous occasions since 2018, though the repression against him escalated in November 2020 when he initiated a hunger and thirst strike along with several activists to demand the release of rapper Denis Solís. It ended when the police rushed Movimiento San Isidro’s headquarters in Old Havana on November 26th, where members of the group were entrenched, and arrested 14 activists who were inside the building.

Toward the end of April, Otero Alcántara declared once again a hunger and thirst strike to demand an end to the police siege at his home. State Security entered his home in the middle of the night and transported him to Calixto García Hospital, where he remained without explanation for a month in the custody of security forces. On that occasion, Amnesty International declared him a “prisoner of conscience”.

In mid-September, Time magazine named Otero Alcántara one of the 100 most influential people of the year.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuban Rapper Maykel Osorbo Distrusts Prison Doctors to Cure His Illness

Maykel Osorbo was detained on May 18 and is in a maximum-security prison in Pinar del Rio. (*Proyecto EvolucionEnCuba*/2013)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, November 18, 2021–Cuban activist and art curator Anamely Ramos on Wednesday denounced from Miami that the contrarian rapper, Maykel Castillo Osorbo is at risk in jail, where he has been held in isolation for six months.

Maykel Castillo “is sick”, denounced Ramos on her Facebook page, telling how after his six-day hunger and thirst strike, being in solitary confinement for over two weeks and at least four days in a punishment cell, Castillo called to say he had been taken to the doctor “to have his lymph nodes checked.”

In statements made to 14ymedio Ramos explained that today the singer “does not have a conclusive diagnosis” and he does not believe he will have one because “he will not allow any intervention and for that reason, it is important that he get out of there now.”

She notes that Castillo had been “complaining about his lymph nodes for more than two months” but that, although he told the doctor at the Kilo Cinco y Medio prison in Pinar del Río, she “did not pay it any attention” at that time.

Ramos clarified that she had not wanted to publish this news earlier because everyone was focused on the November 15th march and because she also needed to “hear the details in Maykel’s own voice.” She was finally able to speak with the rapper at the beginning of the week and he told her that “he has lumps all over–under his armpits, near his clavicle, behind his arm. He has been experiencing vomiting, fever, sweats, and extreme fatigue.”

Following a recent exam, “it appears to be a failure of continue reading

the lymphatic system, but the test was inconclusive and Maykel already told me that he will not allow them to perform any invasive medical procedures.” The activists also wrote that she does not trust any diagnosis or treatment that they might perform on Castillo. “If he is that way, it is precisely due to his unjust imprisonment and the mistreatment to which he has been subjected since long before he was in jail.”

Ramos reminded readers in her Facebook post that the rapper has been the victim of more than 120 acts of political violence in a little over a year, “He endured a year and a half in jail for opposing Decree 349. Maykel belongs to that segment of the Cuban population which is persistently discarded. The profound injustice the dictatorship represents includes this terrible asymmetry, where it is these people who always pay the highest price to be free.”

Similarly, she demanded the Cuban State free Castillo and not to deny him “the possibility of attending to his health in a trustworthy place,” if he so decides and “to put the brakes on the violence and the barbarity they have unleashed everywhere and which, in the end, will reach them too.”

Maykel Osorbo was detained on May 18th and on the 31st of that same month was transferred to Kilo Cinco y Medio, a maximum-security prison. He is accused of “assault”, “public disorder” and “evasion” for acts that occurred on April 4th, during a protest on Damas street, in front of the Movimiento San Isidro headquarters, when police attempted to arbitrarily arrest him and he refused to get in the patrol car.

Osorbo had denounced that he is imprisoned “for a song” which has become an anthem for freedom-loving Cubans and their struggle against the dictatorship, referring to Patria y Vida, which he sings with Yotuel Romero, Gente de Zona, and rapper Eliexer Márquez Duany, aka El Funky.

This Thursday, precisely the six-month anniversary of Osorbo’s arrest, Patria y Vida will be sung at the gala of the 22nd Latin Grammy Awards, a song that was nominated twice. El Funky’s participation in the event is confirmed; he traveled from Havana to Miami to attend the gala.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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