14ymedio, Havana, 17 January 2017 — On Tuesday night, economist Karina Gálvez was released after her family paid a bond of 2,000 Cuban pesos. The editor of the magazine Convivencia (Coexistence) thanked the solidarity of all those who denounced her arrest on 11 January, according to her statements to 14ymedio.
The activist met with her family and friends outside the place where she was detained, at kilometer four and a half pn the road to San Juan, in Pinar del Rio. The authorities did not inform her of an upcoming date for questioning or trial.
Gálvez’s release took place a few hours before Dagoberto Valdés, director of the independent publication, was subjected to an interrogation about the accusations against Galvez.
“Major Odalys led me to an interrogation room with a video camera,” Valdés said at midday. “There she told me that if I lied I could be charged with perjury.” The official told him that he had been summoned to State Security headquarters – at four and a half kilometers on the road to San Juan, Pinar del Río- for being “a witness to an economic crime that has nothing to do with the project of the Coexistence Study Center.”
However, Attorney Wilfredo Vallín, president of the Cuban Legal Association, says that “it is the court that must have the last word about whether or not a statement is true and whether it is a perjury offense.” So “the law gives the person the opportunity to change his statement as often as he understands, but the final statement will be the one he makes before the court.”
The major repeated questions similar to those asked of Karina’s sister, Livia Gálvez, on Monday, and another member of the publication’s team, Idael Márquez, summoned last Saturday. The interrogation happened in the same place where the economist is being held and where Valdes was interviewed by the police last October and, warned that his life was going to be made “very difficult.”
“Are you aware of the legal procedures around the sale of Karina’s property? Did you accompany her to the notary’s office to do the paperwork? How much money was given to complete the payment for the house?” These were among the questions asked by the director of the magazine Convivencia, who answered that he knew “absolutely nothing.”
The official blamed Valdés for being behind the transaction to acquire the property, an accusation that the layman rejected, urging the official to define whether the case was an “economic crime” or a charge with “political connotations,” related to the peaceful activism that the members of the Convivencia team maintain from the city of Pinar del Río.
“You have to participate as a witness in the trial,” Odalys told him, an assertion that has raised alarms over a possible cancellation of the right to leave the country for Valdés and other members of the team. Something that could negatively influence the presence of the members of the Coexistence Study Center during the upcoming meeting about education in Cuba scheduled for 28 and 29 in Miami, Florida.