Faced with Harassment by State Security, Cuban Activist Daniela Rojo Requests Political Asylum in Germany

Daniela Rojo and her children in a shelter in Germany, waiting to receive asylum. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 18 May 2022 — The activist Daniela Rojo is with her two children in a refugee center in Frankfurt. The young woman, age 26, girl arrived in the German city on May 15, where she immediately requested political asylum, but she had not wanted to make it public until now.

“Here, my children and I are safe and I will not be persecuted for my political ideas. My eternal thanks to the German authorities, who have treated us like family,” Rojo wrote in a brief message on Facebook along with a photograph with her two sons. The activist added that she has received many messages and promised to give more details about her escape.

The young woman was moderator of the Archipíelago platform and the architect in Guanabacoa of the initiative for the march called for November 15 throughout Cuba. Although she no longer belongs to the opposition organization, she was one of the members who suffered the most harassment and threats from State Security.

Rojo was kidnapped by the political police and spent five days in a house belonging to the Ministry of the Interior under the custody of several agents shortly before the peaceful protests called for November.

At the beginning of that same month, the Minors’ Body of the Ministry of the Interior cited her for the way in which she raises her children, which Rojo described as “a very subtle form of emotional blackmail that would understandably make any mother give up.”

From her departure from Archipíelago, she clarified that she needed to “shelter” her family, “the one that has suffered the most from this process, especially my children.” Although she would continue to advocate for “a plural and democratic Cuba and especially for the release of all political prisoners.”

In addition, for participating in the demonstration on July 11, she spent 23 days in prison, and all “for exercising my constitutional right to demonstrate peacefully,” she denounced through 14ymedio .

Daniela Rojo was accused of public disorder and contempt, both common crimes, for which the Prosecutor’s Office requested five years in prison; She was released on August 3 after paying 2,000 pesos bail. Then, in November of last year, she reported being detained for five days in a State Security operation, an arrest she expected to take place on November 14, before the protests.

Rojo joins a long list of Cuban opponents who have had to leave the island in recent years due to the harassment and repression of the Cuban regime, such as the artist Hamlet Lavastida, the poet Katherine Bisquet, the rapper Denis Solís or the playwright Yunior Garcia Aguilera.

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