Translating Cuba

Las Tunas Court Accepts Habeas Corpus Petition Prepared by Cubalex for Detained Activists / Cubalex

Cubalex, 29 April 2021 — The Provincial Court of Las Tunas has accepted the special Habeas Corpus petition, presented through legal assistance from Cubalex, in favor of the activists Taimir García, Adrián Góngora and Damián Hechavarría, detained on April 21 after peacefully demonstrating in that eastern city. The court required the police to present the detainees at a public hearing.

The public hearing, which seeks to clarify the facts, will take place on April 29, at 2:00 p.m., at the courthouse.

Cubalex applauds Jorge Luis García Fajardo, Annia Naomi Cortés, Jesús Canales Romero and Luis Fernández Reyna, judges of the judicial body, for working with the independence that their positions require, to comply with the provisions of the law and guarantee due process in this case.

Criminal Court Division One continue reading

Writ Granting Hearing in Habeas Corpus Proceeding

President – Gerardo Peña Canales

Judges – Jorge Luis García Fajardo, Annia Naomi Cortés, Jesús Canales Romero, Luis Fernández Reyna

In Las Tunas on April 28, 2021

Granting a petition for habeas corpus presented by citizen Holmis Rivas Carmenate in favor of the detainees Taimir García Meriño, Adrián Miguel Góngora Santiesteban and Damián Hechavarría Labrada against the detention carried out by officers of the National Revolutionary Police

Judge Gerardo Peña Canales presiding –

As a result of the proceedings, the Court finds that a habeas corpus procedure has been filed on behalf of the detainees Taimir García Meriño, Adrián Miguel Góngora Santiesteban and Damián Hechavarría Labrada which requests that a hearing be held, seeking their immediate release on the grounds that their arrest and subsequent transfer to the Provincial Investigation Unit of Las Tunas is arbitrary.

Considering that the petition is exercised in the manner prescribed in article 467 et seq. of the Criminal Procedure Law, conforming as required, and according to what is pertinent.

The Court Agrees:

To schedule the date, time and place to hold a hearing for a habeas corpus proceeding.

Requiring the Provincial Instructor who handles the process to present the detainees Taimir García Meriño, Adrián Góngora Santiesteban, and Damián Hechavarría Labrada, to hold the hearing that will be held on April 29, 2021 at 2:00 p.m. in the Provincial Court of Las Tunas, having to submit a written form stating when and the reason for the arrest of these people, the crime charged, the dictated resolutions in effect and the other arguments considered in respect to the denounced violations by the person who presents the process, who must be served with a copy

In the more than 10 years that our organization has been assisting its clients in filing this legal remedy, this is the first time that a court has complied with the country’s rules and respected international standards. We believe that this first step could create a precedent for justice and respect for human rights.

The habeas corpus petition was filed in Court the day after the activists were arrested, when they protested a fine imposed on Hechavarría for selling medicinal plants. The event was broadcast live on Góngora’s Facebook profile and disseminated on social media with expressions of support for the activists. Hours later the altercation was covered on the Cuban TV Newscast. Humberto López described them as “criminals with terrible social behavior” and said that they would be turned over to the authorities.

Cubalex denounces such behavior as violating the principle of presumption of innocence. “When they report it [like this], all the judicial officials begin to prejudge it,” explains lawyer Giselle Morfi.

“In addition, most of the time, due to the inefficiency of the Central Criminal Registry, they don’t prepare a timely update of the record of prior offenses and they also bring that up without it being correct.”

The specialist adds that it also lends itself to confusion and parallel trials regarding prior criminal records because they impose fines that do not leave a record and people assume it is true, and their criminal history expands many times, without having it. “This goes against another important principle, which is the social reintegration of the arrested person. How can someone, who has been portrayed under a high-magnification lens as a criminal, return to their pre-broadcast state, even if they are tried and acquitted? It is unethical for press professionals to participate in this,” concludes the lawyer.

With some 30 habeas corpus proceedings presented by Cubalex to the country’s courts from January through March 2021, this is not the first time that a Court has granted the petition, recognized in Article 96 of the Cuban Constitution and enacted in the Criminal Procedure Law. On February 3, activist Hanoi Morán Dime was released after the Provincial Court of Havana considered the habeas corpus petition drawn up by Cubalex. But on that occasion the judges did not clarify the circumstances of the request or hold a public hearing, as required.

Translated by Tomás A.

With the Pandemic at Its Height in Cuba, the Opening of the Borders is Announced for November 15

The government, in need of foreign exchange, has announced the reopening of borders for the high season. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid,6 September 2021 — The official press announced this Sunday the next border reopening, which will begin “gradually” on November 15, although the staggered process will only apply, apparently, to the national market. Last year, on the same date, the country was opened to tourism but had to close it again after two months due to the increase in covid-19.

The Ministry of Tourism expects that entry protocols to the country will be relaxed in view of the beginning of the high season in Cuba and will focus on monitoring symptomatic patients and taking temperatures. This type of control is hardly useful at present, since the main countries that send tourists to the Island have massively vaccinated their population, which greatly reduces the chances of their suffering the symptoms of covid 19. The exception is except Russia, where the percentage vaccinated barely reaches 25.5%.

More useful could be another of the measures announced by the ministry, such as the recognition of vaccination certificates, although it has not yet been clarified whether that will be a requirement. The need to show a PCR test upon entry will also be eliminated, although “random diagnostic tests” will be done that the note does not specify, but which could be antigen tests. This type of screening test has proven particularly useful among symptomatic patients, but rarely among those without any signs of infection.

“The opening of the domestic tourist market will also begin gradually, in correspondence with continue reading

the epidemiological indicators of each territory,” the note indicates, in which it is reported that the staggered openings will only apply to Cubans. If confirmed, it would be the umpteenth time that the population has been relegated to tourist apartheid.

At the beginning of July, the Government announced a ban on travel to Varadero for Cuban citizens, while foreigners continued to have the doors open to them. The situation was reminiscent of the one that existed on the island until 2008, when Raúl Castro authorized Cubans to enter hotels. Until that year, Cubans could only enter hotels as workers serving tourists.

In 2019, before the pandemic hit, only 22% of overnight stays in Cuban hotels were made by national tourists, while 78% were foreigners. Internal tourism is, therefore, a minority and its expenditure is negligible in relation to visitors from abroad, hence the Government makes every efforts to recover the latter.

With the economic crisis harassing the Government and a population increasingly prone to protesting in the street, spurred by the collapse of the country, the authorities make a decision that could be hasty, since Cuba continues at a peak of the pandemic and this Sunday once again registered very worrying data.

After several days of decreasing cases, according to official data, this Saturday 9,221 new covid-19 infections were detected. In addition, 86 people died, including a pregnant woman and a 13-year-old girl, which denotes a stagnation in the figures that does not allow us to be optimistic in thinking about the reopening.

The authorities are confident that vaccination will allow an adequate picture to be reached in the next two months, but the truth is that since immunization began in May, barely 36% of the population has been completely vaccinated. At that rate, it is difficult to think that by mid-November the 70% that was initially expected to achieve group immunity would be reached, and even more so now, that the Delta variant has led to a reconsideration of this data and a raising of the required immunity level to 90% of the population vaccinated.

Tourism is one of the few economic sectors that provide large amounts of foreign currency to the Government and over which it has control, unlike remittances. The drop that this key area has suffered so far this year is around 95%. In the first half of 2021, only 141,316 visitors were received, which is seven times fewer than in the same period of the previous year, which was already very bad (986,673).

The economist Pedro Monreal warned on his networks last Friday that in order to equal the disastrous figure of 1,085,920 visitors in 2020, 944,604 visitors should arrive in the second half of 2021. In 2016 and 2017, the best years of tourism in Cuba, more than 4.5 million travelers came to the Island.

The need for the Government, therefore, to reopen the borders is great, but it can be counterproductive with such negative health data. Elías Amor, a Cuban-resident economist in Spain, compares the situation between the two countries, since Europe also has a high dependence on this sector. In it, foreign tourism reopened in the summer of 2020, still in a very restrictive framework, and even so, a severe second wave of covid-19 was experienced in October, when the high season ends.

This year, when the Spanish population has been vaccinated well above 50% (it reached 70% on August 31), tourism has become even more open, although conditional on vaccination passports or PCR tests and the closure of borders to certain countries.

“Summer, which is the high season in Spain, France or Italy, has behaved reasonably, with a certain recovery in activity focused, above all, on national tourism. In other words, the Spanish have been the ones who have made the hotel business work on the Canarian or Balearic beaches in 2021. International tourism remains below the 2019 figures,” explains the expert.

Amor, who doubts that foreigners want to return to the island in such a complex context and points to the residual of the national market in Cuba, suggests the possibility that the authorities seek to capture remittances from Cubans who live abroad and wish to pay for a vacation to their families, something that would depend on the “gradualness” with which the internal borders are opened.

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Cuba: A Lack of Beds Strains Hospitals in Sancti Spiritus

There has been a rush to build wooden beds to place in state centers set up as confinement areas. (Photo: Edelio Torres / Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 September 2021 — The local press continues to show the darker side of Covid-19 in Cuba and moves away from the triumphalism maintained by the national media over the course of the pandemic on the island. A report published this Saturday in the Sancti Spíritus Escambray newspaper describes the problems of obtaining a hospital bed in the territory.

The article focuses on the problems involved in being admitted and the time that patients must wait to access a hospital room. The article starts with the story of Tomás Simón Serrano, who spent 37 hours sitting on one of the benches of the Acute Respiratory Infections Guard Corps of the Camilo Cienfuegos Provincial General Hospital.

“When they arrived at the hospital they found that there was no bed and they had to wait. They told him that he had to wait for a discharge, and if a PCR would be negative to see if they took a bed. Conclusion: They arrived at Monday at nine in the morning and were assigned bed on Tuesday at ten at night,” the article details.

But Serrano’s story is one of many. In the consultation of the Provincial Pediatric Hospital also accumulated are “mothers with children in their arms for hours and hours” waiting for a means of transport “to take them to an isolation center, children with IVs on top of their parents while they wait to be admitted,” explains the article.

Although the official figures, which the Ministry of Public Health disseminates every day, show that the cases infected in Sancti Spíritus did not exceed a thousand this Saturday, reality has force continue reading

d an increase in the capacities of “the assistance institutions, the creation of hospital rooms in educational centers, the provision of beds even in nursery schools and the reorganization of many health services.”

“If the numbers were considered, it could be believed that the more than 3,000 beds in the province for the hospitalization of suspected and confirmed cases with Covid-19 are enough. But beyond the paper, what seems promising data is usually subtracted before the multiplication of sick every day,” warns the report.

For the isolation of positive patients alone, according to data from the Provincial Health Directorate, 39 centers with 2,490 bed and for suspected cases 27 centers with 1,116 beds had to be enabled in the territory of Sancti Spiritus. But “even so it does not mean that the equation is cleared from the income-income equation and that there is a bed for anyone who requires it.”

This Saturday, 905 new positive cases were detected in the province, but the problems in accessing a PCR test mean that many of those infected do not even enter the official statistics.

Last Monday, the 147 beds destined for Covid-19 patients at the Camilo Cienfuegos hospital were full as were the 40 for intensive care. On average, around 75 people are admitted daily to that hospital, just for Covid-19. In Pediatrics the numbers are around 60 and their beds were also full last week.

Escambray warns that hospitals “collapse,” a word that the Minsap (Ministry of Public Health) authorities avoid using, in part because “the numbers of infected per day and those recovering from Covid-19 whose sequels continue to require hospital care such as patients who, given their clinical evolution, have to remain in beds for several days.”

The Sancti Spíritus Agroforestry Company has had to throw itself into the race to build wooden beds to place in schools and other state centers enabled as confinement areas, but in addition to the frame, mattresses and bedding are needed for them, products are widely deficient in the island.

Escambray’s report has prompted criticism from readers who have not lost the opportunity to recall that what is described is quite similar to what was described “in the news, talking about the calamities of other countries and our pride that this does not happen in Cuba because we are the good of the world, and nothing is further from reality, it was only a matter of time,” said an Internet user.

Scenes of patients without hospital beds, lacking medical oxygen or with serious symptoms at home are increasingly being seen on social networks and local Cuban media, challenging the version ’with more makeup’ promoted by senior officials and the national circulation media.

The provincial press has been making a move for weeks. A few days ago, the Ciego de Ávila newspaper confirmed the lack of oxygen and the precarious situation in the area and shortly after, it was on 5th of September, the official Cienfuegos newspaper, which spoke of an “unprecedented scenario” in an article titled Covid-19 in Cienfuegos: the truth on the table.

The newspaper denounced then that diagnostic tests were lacking, PCRs were accumulating without results, there was poor management of cases in primary care according to their risk leading them to end up in serious condition in hospitals due to the lack of screening. Added to this was the lack of medicinal oxygen — despite the incorporation of the Armed Forces and Russia into production — and the shortage of medicines or healthcare supplies and equipment.

To all this we must add, the newspaper pointed out, that what the Government promised does not always arrive. “I must tell you that there are problems with food, that in not a few cases breakfast has been eaten out of time and lunch goes out in the afternoon. It also happens that after discharge people have to wait up to three and four hours for transportation (. ..),” denounced a citizen.

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Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara is Charged With New Crimes

Otero Alcántara during a live broadcast from his home in Old Havana, in May 2021. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 September 2021 — The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who has now spent 53 days in prison, was charged with new crimes on Monday. The curator Claudia Genluí, a member of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), reported that Otero Alcántara is now being accused of public disorder, instigation to commit a crime and contempt.

The crimes were recorded in the document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic in response to a change of precautionary measure requested by the artist’s lawyer, which was denied.

Before this change, in addition to contempt, the crimes of attack and resistance were those that appeared in file number 24, which Otero Alcántara shares with rapper Maykel Castillo, called Osorbo, imprisoned in Pinar del Río. Genlui points out that despite the new additions, the file remains the same.

Regarding the current situation of the artist’s criminal process, she told 14ymedio she is “very worried” because “he remains in the same circumstances” of uncertainty and without a trial date. She also said that Otero Alcántara’s lawyer, Clemente Morgado, filed a complaint on September 3 regarding the denial of the change of precautionary measure.

Genlui explained that the MSI leader is currently “isolated” in the Guanajay high security prison due to cases of covid-19 and the “dengue fever continue reading

threat” inside the prison. “They only allow you a phone call twice a week for just three minutes,” she added.

In a post published on her Facebook, Genlui says that Otero Alcántara “is generally in good health,” remains “stable in spirit” and is “drawing.”

She noted that “he is an artist with no criminal record, who is being deprived of his freedom” only for “exercising his right to freedom of expression in force in the Cuban Constitution.” She also said that due to “the epidemiological situation,” as well as possible complications that may occur in these conditions, “Alcantara’s life is in danger” and pointed out that the Cuban Government was “solely responsible.”

The artist was arrested on July 11 when he joined the protests that took place in almost all the country’s provinces. In his case, he was in the Centro Habana area.

Other opponents arrested on that day and who are still in prison are Félix Navarro, arrested along with Armando Abascal, Francisco Rangel and Leilandis Puentes, accused of attack and public disorder. The dissident and former prisoner of the Black Spring, who leads the Pedro Luis Boitel Party for Democracy, is imprisoned in the Combinado del Sur in Matanzas.

The activist and Lady in White Saily Navarro Álvarez, Navarro’s daughter, asked for help to publicize the dangerous situation her father is in. In an audio broadcast by the former prisoner of the Black Spring, Ángel Moya, Navarro Álvarez says that on September 3 they gave him a summons to appear at the police unit of the municipality of Perico, in Matanzas, where he currently resides.

Regarding the meeting with the authorities, the activist said that it was to let her know two things: that her precautionary measure of house arrest “could be revoked for her having violated it by leaving the municipality without asking for permission” and that her father was in good health.

However, Navarro Álvarez clarified that onAugust 17 her father told his family that if on August 22 they were not together, on the 23rd “he would be on a hunger strike.” Since that day they have not been able to communicate with him any more and she denounced that “the uncertainty and anguish of not knowing for sure” about his health continues.

According to the Cubalex legal advice center, the list of detainees in the protests reached 949 people from July 11 to date and reports that 437 protesters are still in jail.

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The Ground Threatens to Swallow an Entire Building in Havana’s Lawton Neighborhood

Though it has not been adequately maintained, the 1939 building was considered among the most solid in Havana’s Lawton neighborhood. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, September 6, 2021 — Residents of the Havana neighborhood Lawton had long been warning of the dangers of the sewer repairs being done in their neighborhood. Their fears were realized on Sunday when a huge sinkhole opened up next to an excavation at the corner of 16th and C streets, causing structural failure in a building that, until yesterday, was one of the few in this distressed neighborhood that people still admired.

Built in 1939, it retains some of its original stylish design. Though it is has not been adequately maintained, the building, which includes a ground-floor shop and several apartments, used to be considered among the most solid structures in Lawton. Now, cracks are visible througout its facade and the danger of collapse has become very real. Such a collapse would have serious ramifications for six people and a state-run store. According to the official press, as many as four neighboring buildings could also be impacted.

In an article published by a representative of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources in Havana, Manuel Paneque Gomez claims that the company in charge of the project and the state itself will be responsible for any damages to public and private propertay as well as for reinforcing the already precarious building structures. Residents complain, however, that proper security measures have not been put in place, nor have public notices been issued, so they expect little from the state-owned company.

The project to upgrade the sewage system involves a 5,000-foot route and four-foot pipes. It is expected to serve more than 100,000 residents in the neighborhoods of Arroyo Naranjo and Diez de Octubre. But this month’s torrential rains began alarming area residents and the strong storm that hit the Cuban capital on Saturday was the final blow.

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Cuba: A Policeman Who Beat a July 11th Protestor in Custody is Sanctioned

Romero Negrín was awaiting trial for protesting on April 30 on Obispo Street. (Collage)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 7 September 2021 — For the first time, one of the complaints of mistreatment of the detainees of July 11 (11J) has had consequences. The officer accused of having beaten the university student Leonardo Romero Negrín while he was in custody, has been sanctioned by the Prosecutor’s Office with “administrative measures.”

According to an investigation by the university magazine Alma Mater, the prosecutor validated, based on the complaint by Romero Negrín’s father, that the duty officer who received the young man when he arrived at the Dragones Police Unit hit him with a board “in the back of the thigh.”

The Military Prosecutor’s Office, indicates the magazine in an article published this Monday, detailed that “the act of the agent did not qualify as a crime of injuries,” but it did consider it an “administrative contravention.” For this reason, “he communicated these results to the headquarters of the Minint [Ministry of the Interior] and the PNR [National Revolutionary Police]” for the “adoption of corresponding administrative measures,” although without specifying what they consist of.

On July 19, Alma Mater announced the meeting with the young man and said that “in the next few days” it would publish about the case. As a result of the delay of almost two months, they received pressure on the networks to publish the story of Romero Negrín, a university student who is studying Physics at the University of Havana.

The text narrates that several witnesses declared to the Prosecutor’s Office that “Leonardo arrived at the unit visibly upset.” Although in initial testimonies the young man claimed to receive several blows, in his statements to continue reading

the Prosecutor’s Office he affirmed that it was a single blow, something that the duty officer also admitted, who added that, after hitting him with the board, “he demanded verbally he calm down. ”

The agent himself acknowledged, the article highlights, that “given the magnitude of the situation, he decided to keep his regulation weapon and use a board (…) to protect his physical integrity.”

In addition, on July 12, when he arrived at the penitentiary center known as the Cotorro prison for minors, in a medical examination Romero Negrín found “slight injuries to his nose, arm and thigh.”

Romero Negrín, arrested on July 11, was released on July 17 and accused of “public disorder” but he was already under a precautionary measure of house arrest awaiting a trial for the same crime for protesting on April 30 on Obispo Street, when he pulled out a sign that read “Socialism Yes, Repression No.” On that occasion, he was also arrested.

In an interview given to La Joven Cuba, the student said that what they did to him “was little” compared to other detainees who had “a bruised eye,” “a swollen face,” as well as “others with a plaster cast, with fractured fingers.”

“They brought an old man on Friday, they went to look for him at his house because they saw him on a camera,” he said. “They put him into the Ivanov handcuffed and made him go through something known as Somatón. What is that? Well, they get them off the truck and there is a line of soldiers on the left and another on the right, and all the inmates have to pass through the middle of those two rows so that they will beat them.”

According to the Cubalex legal advice center, the list of detainees in the protests reached 956 people from July 11 to date and 443 protesters are still in jail.

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CUBALEX Answers Questions From Our Users About the Events and Repression After July 11th / Cubalex

Cubalex, 6 September 2021

Why shouldn’t the July 11 protesters be prosecuted?

The protesters of July 11 cannot be prosecuted for the crime of public disorder, or any other. Firstly, Article 56 (New Constitution of Cuba, 2019) provides that “the rights of assembly, demonstration, and association, for lawful and peaceful purposes, are recognized by the State as long as they are exercised with respect for public order and compliance with the precepts established in the law.”

What is the penalty for the crime of public disorder?

The lawyer adds that the criminal code provides for a prison sentence of from 3 months to a year, for a person who without just cause, in public places, entertainments, or large gatherings, shouts alarms, or utters threats of a common danger. Obviously what happened on July 11 has nothing to do with the crime of public disorder.

The July 11 protesters did not commit a crime, they exercised a right that is recognized in the Constitution. The law conditions the exercise of the right of demonstration to continue reading

what is established in the law.

What is the law that governs the procedure to request permission for or to give notice of a demonstration?

There is no legal rule, therefore no type of crime is designated. The people who came out on July 11 to shout “Freedom,” to demand respect for their rights, were not committing any type of crime. It is also worrying that the people mobilized by Díaz Canel are not being judged. Are they selectively applying this law? Of course! They’re only applying it to those people who demonstrated against the system.

The people who participated in the July 11 protests as counter-protesters, members of the “rapid response brigades,” are not on trial. That’s called selective application of the law – applying it in a discriminatory way according to one’s way of thinking.

Let us not forget that the right to think freely — freedom of conscience, thought, and religion — is an absolute right, which does not admit restrictions even in times of pandemic such as we are in now, or in exceptional situations. I add that Cuba has not declared a state of emergency to restrict human rights.

It is true that it is an epidemiological situation, but if Diaz-Canel called a demonstration days after July 11 in the middle of a pandemic, what is the difference between one and the other? Well, the difference is the selective application of the law, and discrimination when it comes to prosecuting these people for the public interest.

Making an example is what they are doing.

They are seeking that Cuban society, that Cuban citizens, will inhibit themselves from expressing publicly and exercising their rights that are well-recognized by the constitution. All these proceedings against your families and against your friends, are so you in your community will not go back out again to demonstrate, to demand your rights, as recognized in the constitution. And that is why it is necessary to broadcast that “freedom is not requested, it is exercised.” That is what they are punishing, that people have exercised their freedom.

Translated by Tomás A.

The Current Status of Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara’s Health / Cubalex

Garotte Vil Performance by Luis Manuel Otera Alcántera (Democratic Spaces)

Cubalex, 10 May 2021 [please note date*] — We present a summary of our report, which you can read in its entirety at this link.

The situation that Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is going through is the result of the unequal relationship between the power of the State and that of the citizen who expresses disagreement with government decisions and demands respect for and the guarantee of fundamental rights.

The State abuses its power, and one example of this is that on May 2, after being on a hunger and thirst strike for a week, Otero Alcántara’s home was raided and he was forcibly transferred to the “General Calixto García” University Hospital, where he has been forced to abandon his strike, based on the medical treatment that was imposed on him, contrary to the Declaration of Malta, which the government claims to respect.

Previously, the State itself had denied on more than one occasion that the strike was real. The denial remains when they allege that Otero has a state of “self-reported voluntary starvation” and, paradoxically, has been confined and incommunicado for 9 days, under the supervision of a “multidisciplinary team that guarantees the recovery of his state of health.” The last note from the Provincial Health Directorate, the only source of partial information available, insists that he has recovered calories and that continue reading

a dermatologist gave him “a treatment,” without explaining which treatment and the reason for it.

The institution violated his right to medical self-determination, by not allowing him to voluntarily choose his admission, treatment, and the doctors who would attend him, functionaries of the State: Dr. Carlos Alberto Martínez Blanco, director of the hospital, deputy to the National Assembly and member of the Council of State, and Dr. Ifrán Martínez Gálvez, deputy director of the hospital, who represents himself as head of the specialized team that attends him personally, and even walks with the patient through the hospital complex, on camera. They also violated his right to informational self-determination when they disseminated the medical results from his clinical record through official media, presumably without his consent.

Currently, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara remains incommunicado and only the official version is known without being able to verify with him or his relatives who have had closer contact, because the government refuses to provide detailed information to the press, to his friends, and to the San Isidro Movement that represents Luis Manuel. Meanwhile, lack of transparency continues to reign in Cuba and the principle of maximum disclosure is violated, by preventing access to information, contrary to international standards for the protection of human rights.

Translated by Tomás A.

*Ed. note: We currently are ’catching up’ on translations of Cubalex and reaching back to earlier months. Please note the dates on these posts. Thank you.

A Doctor of Law Lies in the Official Media / Cubalex

Cubalex, Laritza Diversent, 2 September 2021 — It is irresponsible (as a professional and as a teacher) for the “Doctor of Legal Sciences” Mayda Goite Pierre to give her opinion on things she doesn’t know about or hasn’t even studied. If silence is bad, a cover-up is worse; her opinions misinform the public and confuse her students.

Ms. Goite, at least take the trouble to read the International Convention against Forced Disappearance that the Cuban State signed and ratified, and is therefore obligated (erga omnes) to follow.

Elements of forced disappearance

1. Deprivation of liberty

2. Direct intervention by state agents or others, with their consent and protection

3. Refusal to acknowledge the arrest and/or to reveal the fate or the whereabouts of the person concerned

MININT (Ministry of the Interior) agents have been committing crimes of forced disappearance before and after 11J (11 July).

Continuous or permanent nature of the enforced disappearance: continue reading

The act of disappearance and its execution

1. It begins with the deprivation of liberty of the person and the subsequent lack of information about the fate of the person;

2. It lasts as long as the person’s whereabouts are not known and the person’s identity is determined with certainty.

Once committed, the crime can be prolonged continuously or permanently until the moment when the fate or the whereabouts of the victim is established.

Forced disappearance is an illegal act that generates multiple and continuous violations of fundamental rights:

not to be arbitrarily detained,

not to be subjected to torture,

to life and to the recognition of legal personality.

Victims who suffer forced disappearance are treated contrary to inherent human dignity while in state custody.

Forced disappearance places the victim in a state of complete defenselessness and involves related crimes: the detained person is in a serious situation of vulnerability and risk of suffering irreparable damage to life and personal integrity due to the mere fact of prolonged separation and coercive isolation, which represents cruel and inhuman treatment.

Although the presentation of a Habeas Corpus petition obliges the courts to carry out judicial supervision of the actions of agents of the PNR (National Revolutionary Police) and State Security, under the guarantee of due process, there are legal obstacles and judicial practices that render this remedy ineffective.

Mrs. Goite, take the trouble to study the records that have been filed in the Provincial Court (I’m sure that you do have access) related to the requests to initiate this procedure and you will find a series of legal obstacles that make the Habeas Corpus petition ineffective, especially because they do not meet the standards that guarantee the protection of people against torture, ill-treatment, and forced disappearances, for the following reasons:

1. The law requires the petitioner for Habeas Corpus to designate “the place where the person is being deprived of it [liberty]; and the [government] authority or its agent, or the official who is maintaining” the deprivation of liberty against the person in whose favor the order of liberty is being requested. This requirement leaves people unprotected against possible forced disappearances, rendering the remedy ineffective.

2. The Criminal Procedure Law does not provide for the possibility of initiating a Habeas Corpus proceeding if a “provisional sentence or arrest warrant” was issued in the process, which makes this remedy ineffective against arbitrary detentions.

If you follow my recommendation, you will also find judicial practices in the processing of this remedy that violate the fundamental principles that govern the judicial function, those which show the dependence on and complicity of judges with the agents of the Ministry of Interior, whom they are biased in favor of, to the detriment of the fundamental rights of detained persons.

When responding to the petitions presented, the acting judges:

1. Limit themselves to verifying that the documentation required by criminal procedural legislation was presented in the proceedings, without verifying the information provided in the request, and they only accept as valid the version of the authorities responsible for the arrest.

2. They never pronounce on the reasons for detention, violence, or use of force in arrests, incommunicado detention, forced disappearance and the right of access to defense, and they rarely report on transfers and places of detention where the person is held.

3. They almost never agree to hold an oral hearing, which is mandatory, and so they do not check for themselves the whereabouts and condition of the detained person.

4. Most of the time, they declare the petition inadequate and “improper”, arguing that the arrest took place “with all the procedural guarantees and within the established legal bounds.”

Lack of judicial control in the domestic context:

Judges evade their responsibility regarding judicial control of the actions of law enforcement officials and thereby:

1. They do not comply with the application of the law and fundamental principles of rights that govern the judicial function.

2. They favor arbitrariness, abuses of power, and violations of fundamental constitutional rights, especially the right to liberty and personal security.

3. They limit access to justice and fail to comply with the State’s international obligations regarding the prosecution of international crimes such as torture and forced disappearance, which are currently not included in [Cuban] criminal law, despite the fact that Cuba is a party to the respective international treaties.

There can be no doubt that the judges who have heard and denied the habeas corpus petitions presented as a result of 11J, are necessary cooperators in the serious human rights violations committed by agents of the Ministry of the Interior under orders from the political group that controls the State and Government, in order to guarantee their permanence in power, without political alternatives.

Translated by Tomás A.

Detentions and Besieged Activists: No One Can See Luis Manuel Otero / Cubalex

Cubalex, 12 May 2021 [please note date*] — Cubalex monitored acts of harassment against civil society from May 3rd to 9th, as well as government measures taken in the context of the pandemic and events of shortages of products and basic goods. This report also breaks down the selective internet outages that activists and dissidents have suffered, and highlights the threats, attacks, and violations of rights from the official press.

In one week, our organization documented some 15 people who were victims of home confinement. Most of them were surrounded throughout the week to prevent them from reaching the Calixto García hospital where the authorities are keeping Luis Manuel Otero incommunicado. In addition there were also 20 arrests mainly related to the status of Luis Manuel and the impossibility of accessing him.

We also recorded two incidents of violence against women activists at the hands of the police or public officials. In the case of Carolina Barrero, she was stripped and beaten by women agents in the presence of a male officer. Also in Havana, the activist Yeilis Cruz reported having been beaten by the member of the Party’s Central Committee, Humberto López, when she was filming him on the public street. The activist is currently being detained in the 100th and Aldabó prison in Havana, accused of an assault.

Download our weekly monitoring report on the human rights situation on the Island for more details.

Translated by Tomás A.

*Ed. note: We currently are ’catching up’ on translations of Cubalex and reaching back to earlier months. Please note the dates on these posts. Thank you.

What’s Happened to Luis Manuel Otero Since he was Imprisoned? / Cubalex

Cubalex, 12 May 2021 [please note date*] — On April 25, after suffering constant acts of repression, Luis Manuel Otero made the decision to go on a hunger strike as a protest. On April 30, members of his family reported that he was very weak. On the seventh day of the strike, Luis Manuel Otero declared: “If my body dies, I hope it will continue to be a spark for the freedom of Cuba.”

On May 1st, he was in a precarious state of health when the authorities tried to access his house against his will, as reported on social media. So taking advantage of the early hours of Sunday, May 2, State Security agents entered his home and took him away. He was forcibly hospitalized in the Emergency Center of the General Calixto García University Hospital. Since then he has been isolated and held incommunicado. The only information filtering out about him is what is allowed by State Security.

In this report we analyze the events begore his hunger strike and what has happened to Otero Alcántara since he was imprisoned.

Translated by Tomás A.

*Ed. note: We currently are ’catching up’ on translations of Cubalex and reaching back to earlier months. Please note the dates on these posts. Thank you.

Fidel Castro Was the Main Engineer of the ‘Political Closet’ in Cuba

Soldiers push the jeep carrying Fidel Castro’s ashes that broke down during his funeral procession. (CG)

14ymedio, Manuel de la Cruz, Havana, 6 September 2021 — Back in 2004 my piano teacher said that Fidel Castro had been given a good power to impose himself with his presence before anyone and to do it until the person cried. He supposed that they had given him this power in Africa in the early 1970s, when it was speculated that they made him Obbatalá, because he was Oddúa’s son.

I remember him citing cases where his accusers visibly crumbled before him, where his most critical observers approached him to give him a demand or a letter, in the plenary sessions of the National Assembly, and ended up bowing before his figure.

The same teacher reminded me of what he felt when Fidel Castro was a few yards away from him, at his Art Instructors graduation in Villa Clara. It could not be explained why they cried so organically when they saw him, collapsing against the stands.

In those months I remember an anecdote that a woman who was visiting our evangelical church starred in. On the street she was caught by national television cameras, and offered generous odes to the Cuban Revolution. Then, in a closed circle, she confessed, visibly regretful, that she did not agree with anything he had said, but that the pressure had made her succumb. continue reading

I do not believe that these realities come from any power other than that of implanting terror. Cuba is a political closet. Its doors have iron hinges, prison and ostracism, so that whoever wants to leave has to make a sordid noise and a colossal effort. Outside, in dissent, hell burns for the declared. To be a dissident is, thanks to the late commander, to be anti-Cuban.

For all that it implies, which we know very well, millions have hesitated and still hesitate to declare themselves against the system. It is a kind of opophobia — a nervous collapse. There is a system of dire consequences perfectly created for those who let go of the fear of speaking out against it, those who abandon this kind of political glossophobia. Fidel Castro was the main engineer of this work, with or without an Obbatalá crowned in Nigeria; the G2 [Military Intelligence] its most effective and faithful workers.

But this reflection is not born in a moment of boredom, this post wants to lead to a tangible call:

We Cuban intellectuals and artists have the colossal mission of empowering the voice of the people. Not only to support it once it is alive, but to take it out of the darkness of the room, of the joviality in front of a domino table, of the confidence that a 3-year-old bottle offers.

I believe that we must focus on this, with force, with urgency, with skill.

Outsiders should encourage insiders to come out, and use whatever novel and noble way proves to be effective. Let them know that if their parents throw them out of the house, there is a brother outside who will welcome them with pride, who will give them a plate of food if necessary.

The Devil knows more about being old than about being the Devil. After all, there is nothing like coming out of the closet.

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Activist Fined for Trying to See Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara / Cubalex

The activist Mario Alberto Hernández Leyva (Courtesy)

Cubalex, 13 May 2021 — The activist Mario Alberto Hernández Leyva of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic was fined yesterday, May 11, for trying to enter the Calixto García hospital to inquire about the health status of Luis Manuel Otero. The activist took with him the response that the Court issued to the Habeas Corpus drafted by Cubalex, following our recommendation, where it was clarified that Otero was not incarcerated against his will, but rather was hospitalized as an ordinary patient.

Not only was he unable to visit the patient, but he was fined for circumventing the security that surrounds Luis Manuel. Mario Alberto was sanctioned under Article 2, subsection h of Decree 141, which specifies that: “Contravening the rules of collective security is subject to a fine and other measures indicated and will be imposed in each case in which: h) security devices to prevent the commission of crimes are destroyed, damaged or disabled, of 100 pesos and the obligation to restore, repair or pay the amount for doing so.” The activist had been arrested along with other members of the Movement on May 3 after trying to corroborate Otero’s state of health in the hospital where he was being kept isolated and incommunicado.

After showing up at the hospital information desk, they were intercepted by State Security agents, who were notified by the hospital’s own employees. They were interrogated, threatened, and told that they were forbidden to go near the hospital. If Luis Manuel Otero is hospitalized voluntarily as an ordinary patient, as the Court has certified, why does this leader of the San Isidro Movement not have access to his phone? Why has each person who has tried to see him ended up fined or detained? Why are such measures applied only to him and his visitors, and not to other patients? What is happening to Luis Manuel Otero? Is he a patient, as the health authorities subordinate to State Security claim, or is he a political prisoner?

Translated by Tomás A.

Controlling People in Line Before Saving a Life in Cuba

As the passersby who gathered around the vehicle observed, the motorcycle was originally electric but had been adapted to run on fuel, which is illegal. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 3 September 2021 — A woman and a motorcyclist were seriously injured on Friday when the latter ran his vehicle over the former on the busy corner of Avenida Carlos III and Calle Infanta, in Havana.

The witnesses asked for medical help. Outraged, they tell 14ymedio that none of the many military personnel from the Armed Forces who have been controlling the lines to shop in the Plaza de Carlos III for months have come to help the victims.

“They are a mob. At that corner alone, when I arrived, there were five ’prevention’ guards, not counting the policemen, and none moved a finger,” says a resident from Centro Habana with annoyance. “They prefer to look after the lines than to look after a life, it seems.”

“The woman came out the worst,” says another witness, “they took her unconscious, although the motorist was also injured, with damage to his face.” One of the policemen who was guarding the scene of the accident tells this newspaper that the young man did not have a driver’s license.

As bystanders who gathered around the vehicle observed, the motorcycle was originally electric but had been adapted to run on fuel, something illegal according to a regulation published by the Ministry of Transport in 2019.

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Rain of Judicial Sentences for Resellers and ‘Coleros’ in Villa Clara

The official press recognizes that there are desperate people who see no other solution than to buy from resellers and that the State’s virtual stores do not work as they should. (Laura Rodríguez)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 September 2021 — In the first six months of this year, 78 people were tried for crimes related to speculation and hoarding in Villa Clara and only five were acquitted. The others ended up with prison sentences, sometimes commuted to correctional work, many were fined and all the assets involved were confiscated.

The data has been provided by Yunieska Gómez Montero, vice president of the People’s Provincial Court, for one of the frequent articles with which the State newspaper Granma reports on the seriousness of illicit economic activities for “squeezing the pockets of those who work,” urging the population to report the activities, and admits that the phenomenon proliferates “in broad daylight” without the authorities doing anything.

The text begins with a real case — with the appearance of a fable — in which a long-suffering and prestigious doctor from Villa Clara takes advantage of the little free time that the pandemic gives him to go shopping. On the streets of Santa Clara, he runs into a reseller who asks him for 200 pesos for toilet paper and ends up selling him various products for a total of 2,000 pesos because the doctor does not have time to stand in line.

The article, titled Resellers Offer, Salvation or Shameless Abuse? admits that there is a proliferation of resellers and “hoarders” and attributes it to the existing shortages because the resources of the State are being used to continue reading

combat the pandemic, although it does not miss the opportunity to point to the US embargo. “There is no way that can be ignored and not accuse, as many times as possible, that hostile policy that for more than 60 years has been a shackle on the throat of the country,” it says.

The list of products seized in the Villa Clara operations is long: detergents, peroxide, deodorants, hair conditioner, perfumes and colognes, diapers, hair dye, toothpaste, face creams, cosmetics, beans, rice, cigarettes, cement, light bulbs, coffee, sausages, meats, oils, powdered milk, sugar, alcoholic beverages … “most of which were embezzled from state stores and warehouses,” but also from hard currency stores “stolen in complicity with staff of those centers.”

In total, since July 2020, the Villa Clara Prosecutor’s Office has engaged in 217 processes in which 176 people have been sanctioned, of which 13 were deprived of liberty, 55 interned to labor in a correctional facility, 64 to correctional work without internment, 11 to limitation of freedom, and 33 sanctioned with fines.

The text recalls that coleros — people who stand in line for others — and resellers act with total impunity and in full view of all, but that even worse is the sale through social networks and online sites such as Revolico, because they are more numerous and invisible and even offer medicines.

The article recognizes that there are desperate people who see no other solution than to buy through these channels and that the virtual stores of the State do not work as they should, pushing many to these alternative routes, but urges people to denounce those who take advantage of the needs of others.

“It is immoral for someone to take advantage of the facilities to import medicines, food and hygiene products, and then hawk them. Those who steal drugs from hospitals also escape through that loophole,” says a presumed whistleblower from Santa Clara.

The official press frequently addresses this type of information to remind the population of the consequences of hoarding, theft or illegal sale of products, but alternates this discourse, and the exhibition of operations and punitive measures, with rampant permissiveness, when it does not participate directly in it.

Many experts consider that the fear of a social uprising is the main reason why the authorities do not decide to apply the measures against these practices in a rigorous and generalized manner.

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