14ymedio, Havana, 9 February 2024 — At least 382 Cubans were victims of police violence between 2018 and 2023. Of these, 95 people died as a result of confrontations with the authorities, denial of medical care or excessive use of force, according to a report published Friday by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) and the independent media El Toque, which denounce the “whitewashing” of these crimes by the state.
The typology used by these platforms summarises a total of seven “forms of physical violence” used by the police: sexual abuse, violent arrests, extrajudicial execution, denial of medical assistance – including lack of adequate care or delay in providing it – and unjustified use of firearms and death in custody. In the last case, alleged suicides of prisoners or detainees are also reported, although the “lack of transparency of the regime” prevents the real causes from being known or investigations from being carried out.
The platforms warn that psychological, economic or verbal violence, as well as discrimination, were not taken into account in the register, as these situations are difficult to verify.
A third of the registered cases, 129, correspond to people who were victims of police violence during the mass protests of 11 July 2021
A third of the registered cases, 129, correspond to people who were victims of police violence during the mass protests of 11 July 2021. Likewise, with 167 and 54 incidents respectively, Havana and Camagüey – where the Nuevitas protests took place in August 2022 – are the provinces at the top of the list. In most cases, the violence was politically motivated.
The report indicates that “Of the 95 Cubans who died in the last five years as a result of police excesses, 76 were in state custody at the time of their deaths. From information provided by government representatives to various relatives, we have recorded that 33 died due to a medical condition; 28 died from suicides or presumed suicides; and another 12 from hunger strikes, beatings or accidents. The cause of death of three others is unknown”.
The denial of medical care, as well as prison violence, are two of the most controversial points in the report. Although they have been denounced on numerous occasions by political prisoners or their families, the lack of physical records to prove the violation of human rights is an important factor.
One of the cases mentioned is that of Yosvany Aróstegui, who died in the Amalia Simoni hospital in Camagüey on 7 August 2020, after holding a hunger strike for weeks. The authorities, however, evaded responsibility for the prisoner’s death.
One of the cases mentioned is that of Yosvany Aróstegui, who died in the Amalia Simoni hospital, in Camagüey, on 7 August 2020, after holding a hunger strike for weeks.
Regarding the excessive use of force or firearms, the platforms recall the death of Zinédine Zidane Batista Álvarez in July 2022 in Santa Clara, after an officer shot him three times in a confrontation in the street, the last time in the chest, while the young man was handcuffed on the ground. Both Batista’s family and several organisations have denounced this police excess, claiming the officer unnecessarily used a lethal weapon against an 18 year old minor.
Extrajudicial killings, where people have been killed by the authorities without a court verdict, also have a representative case: the incident in Bahia Honda on 29 October 2022, when the police “deliberately” sank a boat carrying 26 people who were trying to leave the country. Some eight people, including a two-year-old girl, died during the incident.
“The protection of the image of the forces of law and order, the manipulation of events and the lack of transparency mean that many violent acts go unrecorded,” which allows those responsible to go unpunished, says the report. Only two cases are known, it adds, in which two policemen were punished for sexually abusing two teenagers in April 2020 in the Havana municipality of Marianao. However, both the identities of those involved and the sentences were never revealed by the authorities.
The report states that “there is an attempt by those in power to whitewash the image of the police through social networks or in the independent media when violent acts occur”, , and concludes that, for this reason, “it is likely that the real number of people violated, as well as the number of violent incidents in the last five years is much higher”.
Translated by GH
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