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.”
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
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
