14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 7 September 2023 — At least 17 people who participated in the protests in the town of Nuevitas, Camagüey, in August 2022 remain in prison waiting to be tried, the NGO Justicia 11J said on Thursday.
After protesting the blackouts and shortages, the prisoners have been accused of “public disorder, attacks, damage, contempt, resistance and incitement to commit crimes,” and therefore remain “in precarious condition” awaiting trial.
The organization mentioned the specific case of 21-year-old Mayelín Rodríguez, arrested for recording and disseminating images of the protest on social networks.
“In Nuevitas it was possible to observe a repressive strategy that would be applied in subsequent protests: arresting demonstrators or alleged leaders of the marches both during the events and after them, as part of operations and raids, or after they appeared in response to summonses for interrogations,” the organization said, although Cuban counterintelligence had already used similar methods with the participants in the protests of July 11, 2021.
Months after the protests, the regime was still looking for the “guilty” of the demonstrations in Nuevitas
Months after the protests, the regime was still looking for the “guilty ones” of the demonstrations in Nuevitas because, despite the fact that it “understood the inconvenience and difficulties of the people due to the frequent blackouts,” nothing “justifies” the protests.
Justice 11J added that “from the beginning of 2022 to date there have been at least 254 public protests of different types and scale.”
It indicated that it has registered “the arrest of 241 people in connection with protests, even if the victim had not participated in protest events in the public space.”
Justice 11J is a working group that records “the government’s response to public demonstrations of different types, in public space and in detention centers,” after the 11J protests.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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