Fined 20,000 Pesos for Filming and Disseminating on Social Networks the Theft of Potatoes in a Field

Norberto Muñoz was fired from his job as an agricultural worker in Artemisa and had to hand over his cell phone to the Police.

The crops that characterize that area of Artemis are potatoes, bananas and legumes / Invasor

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, July 31, 2024 — Filming a video and uploading it to social networks has cost Norberto Muñoz Palomino a fine of 20,000 pesos, his job and the loss of his cell phone, which has been held for weeks by the Alquízar Police, in the province of Artemisa. The images transmitted by this resident of the community of Pulido, last February, showed a group of people looting a potato field.

In the video, published on Facebook, one can see the long furrows of potatoes belonging to a state company and dozens of area residents filling sacks with potatoes and taking them away. “Man, look at that, people ran into the field, and there is no one to stop them,” says the man posting the video.

Muñoz Palomino also adds that “they are so hungry, not even the special brigade is stopping them,” alluding to the troops of the National Special Brigade of the Ministry of the Interior, also known as “black berets.” The short film was quickly disseminated on social networks, independent news media and channels in South Florida. In a few hours, thousands of Internet users had seen the images.

“Shortly after that I was summoned by the police,” Muñoz Palomino tells 14ymedio. After an interrogation in the Alquízar Police Unit, he was fined 20,000 pesos under Decree Law 370 that allows the authorities to sanction social media users for the opinions they express or the content they disseminate. The agents also kept his cell phone and so far have not returned it.

“It’s been a hard blow because now I have been left incommunicado and without a job,” says Muñoz Palomino, who adds that after the incident he lost his contract in the state company and nobody in the area wants to hire him as an agricultural worker, a job he performed when he filmed the scenes of the potato theft. In the town of Pulido, on the outskirts of the city of Alquízar, the chances of earning a living, beyond the countryside, are scarce.

With a long and narrow street, Pulido has traditionally been a village of farmers, and after the nationalization of most of the land around it, its inhabitants work mainly in the Basic Cooperative Production Units of the area. The crops that characterize that part of Artemisa are potatoes, bananas, legumes and also garlic and onions.

The inhabitants of the town have been forced to seek their livelihoods in other municipalities

The nearby Pre-University Institute in the Socialist Republic of Romania Field, which in the 80s and 90s was also a source of employment for the residents of Pulido, ceased to function almost 20 years ago as a teaching center. The inhabitants of the town have since been forced to seek their livelihoods in other nearby municipalities such as Güira de Melena or in the municipal capital, Alquízar.

“Not being able to have a job here is a condemnation,” Muñoz Palomino tells this newspaper. In addition, he has already had to pay the 20,000 pesos of the fine to avoid the amount “accumulating and being greater.” That amount of money approaches half a year of the salary he earned as an agricultural worker. He sums up his annoyance: “Just for showing the truth; I didn’t deceive anyone.”

Now, his hope is that they will return his cell phone as soon as possible, but the police have told him that the device is being analyzed to “review its content and the contacts” that Muñoz Palomino has stored on his cell phone. Meanwhile, to communicate, he appeals to family and friends, but he is still unemployed.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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