14ymedio, Havana, 17 January 2022 — The demonstrators of Obispo Street, who spent several months in prison, were informed this Monday in Villa Marista, the State Security headquarters in Havana, that they will receive an “administrative fine” in order to conclude the judicial process against them.
“Serving prison for the alleged fabricated charges of resistance and public disorder is unfair and also paying such a high amount of money [7,000 pesos] is doubly illegal,” independent reporter Mary Karla Ares, denounced on her social networks. She was arrested last year on April 30 together with Thais Mailén Franco Benítez, Yuisan Cancio Vera, Inti Soto Romero, Luis Angel Cuza Alfonso and Esteban Rodríguez, in an act of solidarity with the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.
Ares specified that the political police let the protesters know that when they pay the fine “automatically” their “immigration restriction would be lifted, which alluded to an invitation to leave the country.” This tactic of the regime with Cuban opponents has been very recurrent in recent months, forcing many to leave the island in the face of threats and warnings of repression.
The political police warned them that “if they do not accept the sanction, the matter will continue to the court and there we would have to comply with what the judge dictates.”
“You take it or go straight to prison and fuck yourself,” Ares adds in her message, which she accompanied with a photo where she appears with her unjustly imprisoned companions and a video where they are heard saying in chorus: “Patria y vida (Homeland and Life). Freedom for the political prisoners. No more dictatorship.”
Faced with the pressure and blackmail of the instructors, the demonstrators agreed “to pay a fine but that it be a smaller amount.” They will receive a new summons where they will know the “final answer on the value of the fine” to be paid if the Prosecutor’s Office accepts the request, Ares told 14ymedio.
The young woman declared that she was very struck by the insistence of the political police in letting them know that they were going to “lift the immigration regulation” as if it were the most important thing in the meeting on Monday.
The young woman declared that she was very struck by the insistence of the political police in letting them know that they were going to “lift the immigration regulation” as if it were the most important thing in the meeting on Monday.
Of the six activists arrested on April 30, the first to be released from prison was Ares under the measure of “home confinement” after serving almost a month in prison. At the end of September, Thais Mailén Franco Benítez and Yuisan Cancio were released under the same conditions.
After eight months in prison, Inti Soto, Ángel Cuza and Esteban Rodríguez were released on January 4. In the case of Rodríguez, he was transferred from prison to the José Martí International Airport in the capital where he boarded a flight in which he intended to arrive, along with independent reporter Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, in Nicaragua. Managua denied him entry, they said, and after several hours they were admitted to El Salvador and are currently in an unknown destination.
The demonstrators on Obispo Street were trying to approach the house of the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who was then on a hunger strike, when the Police tried to block their way. At that time, they sat down to protest against what they considered a limitation of their right to free movement and were arrested.
The video, broadcast live from the scene, provoked widespread solidarity with the detainees of that day. Amnesty International was one of the first international organizations to call for the immediate release of these protesters.
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