The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba has identified more than 1,000 former Cuban officials who have settled in the United States
14ymedio, Havana, 28 August 2024 — More than 115 repressors who joined the ranks of the Cuban regime have entered the United States in the last year. The figure is five times higher than that reported in February 2023 by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, based in Miami, which manages a program to identify those who, having contributed to the repression on the Island, intend to settle in a democratic country.
The information was revealed at a press conference this Tuesday. Tony Costa, director of the organization, reported that they have “identified more than 1,000 repressors of the Cuban regime (living in the United States) and more than 115 who have entered this country in the last year, many of them lying.”
Accompanied by Florida Republican legislators Carlos Giménez and Ana María Rodríguez, and activists such as Samuel Rodríguez – who manages an economic fund to help prisoners from the protests of July 11, 2021 – Costa indicated that these former officials “have abused the immigration system to come to the United States.” Attorney Santiago Alpízar explained that the humanitarian parole program that has accepted many of the repressors is plagued by “abuses.”
Communist Party members, State Security agents, prosecutors and judges are among the Cubans who have recently arrived and who have been identified in the Cuban Repressors digital project.
It is illegal to give an immigration status to a person who is part of the Communist Party or who is linked to it. It’s against the law
“It is illegal to give an immigration status to a person who is part of the Communist Party or who is linked to it. It’s against the law. These people, who are linked to the regime, who have been repressors in Cuba, have no right to be here,” said Congressman Giménez.
He mentioned cases such as that of prosecutor Rosabel Roca Sampedro, who asked for years in prison for young people who participated in the massive protests on 11 July 2021 in Cuba – for “attack and contempt” – and that of Manuel Menéndez Castellanos, former secretary of the Communist Party in Cienfuegos, who arrived on August 16 in Miami, where part of his family resides.
At the press conference, some testimonies of the repression carried out by these former officials in Cuba were presented. Activist Samuel Rodríguez, exiled in Florida, spoke of Rafael Reyes: “He was in charge of my imprisonment when I was only 18 years old. That man is retired here, in Homestead. He searched houses for religious material to imprison elderly people,” he said.
He also mentioned the case of Judge Melody González Pedraza, responsible, among other cases, for sending to prison four young people accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at the property of regime officials in November 2022. All of them were sentenced by the Popular Municipal Court of Encrucijada, Villa Clara, with González Pedraza presiding, for the crime of attack. The first three received four years in prison, and the fourth, three years.
Melody González Pedraza traveled to the United States and remains detained by immigration authorities while awaiting a political asylum hearing
González Pedraza traveled to the United States and remains detained by immigration authorities while awaiting a political asylum hearing.
Journalist Roberto Quiñones, whom the Cuban government imprisoned for trying to cover a trial of a religious couple who wanted to educate their children at home, also spoke about his case. A judge, Amalio Alfaro Matos, “denied me the amparo (protection order), despite the fact that I made an appeal, which was maintained but never judged, a right of all defendants to prove that there was a due process,” he said. He even mentioned that he had known the judge since before 1999, when he was imprisoned for the first time. Now Alfaro Matos lives in Tampa, Florida.
Another victim, Elixir Arando, said that two of the people identified by the foundation harassed him when he lived in Guantánamo: “It is unheard of to know that these people who repressed us, who beat us, are living and enjoying freedom in this great country.”
The number of repressors is equivalent to about 10% of all those reported in the database of the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, which “reveals the worrying reality that people involved in human rights violations continue to arrive and settle in US territory,” the NGO warned in a statement.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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