14ymedio, Havana, February 10, 2024 — On Friday, the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba included on its list of Cuban Repressors the Cuban diplomat Fidel Ajuria Domínguez, third consul of the Island in Milan (Italy), for assaulting the activist Avana de la Torre. The event, recorded in a video, occurred on February 7, during a protest in front of Cuba’s display at the International Tourism Fair of that city.
Ajuria, says a press release from the Foundation, “physically and verbally” assaulted De la Torre, who was with activists Yuliet Suárez and Leidis Peñalver denouncing “the hardships experienced by the population of the Island and the privileges of the elite.”
The three demonstrators deployed a 26-foot banner with images of the poverty in Cuba and “were attacked by supporters of the regime,” the statement says, “in the style of the Rapid Response Brigades.” In the tumult, De la Torre suffered “a dislocation in her wrist” when Ajuria tried to snatch the banner away, so the activist filed a complaint.
The three demonstrators deployed a 26-foot banner with images of the poverty in Cuba and “were attacked by supporters of the regime”
The statement also emphasizes that “an apparent security guard at the Fair,” who had the obligation to prevent violence within the enclosure, stood idly by while the incident was taking place.
Speaking to Martí Noticias, De la Torre said that she and her colleagues had attended the Milan Fair “peacefully, to teach the reality of Cuba, which is not an egalitarian or equitable country.”
Although the main attacker, explains the Foundation’s text, was Ajuria – along with his wife, Anabel Díaz – the activist pointed out that the aggressors followed the orders of Marcos Hernández Sosa, consul general of Cuba in Milan. De la Torre shared the complaint on her Facebook page, where she also explained that a Cuban resident in Italy, whom she identified by the name of Ada Galano, uttered “serious slander.” Although the activist did not specify about what or whom, she said that she had also denounced her before Italian law.
It is not the first time that De la Torre has been the victim of aggression by the Cuban diplomatic corps. In June 2022, she was attacked by Yahima Martínez Millán, consul general of Cuba in Galicia (Spain), when she was preparing to place flowers in front of a bust of José Martí in Santiago de Compostela.
The Foundation also mentions in its statement the beatings given to the exiled doctors, Lucio Hernández Nodarse and Emilio Arteaga Pérez, in May 2023, for shouting anti-castrist slogans in the Galileo Galilei room in Madrid, during a concert of the duo Buena Fe.
The Cuban Repressors project, managed by the Foundation, aims to “stop, reduce and eradicate violence and arbitrariness for political, economic, social, cultural, creed, race or sexual orientation reasons and thus contribute to facilitating coexistence in a future Cuba.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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