The young woman is accused of “contempt” and of committing “crimes against the constitutional order”
14ymedio, Havana, June 9, 2024 — Sulmira Martínez Pérez, known as Salem Cuba, could be sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the prosecutor’s petition, to which Martí Noticias had access. The 22-year-old, arrested in January last year, is accused of “contempt” and committing “crimes against the constitutional order” for announcing on her Facebook account her intention to hold a protest in the streets.
The prosecution demands “two years of deprivation of liberty for contempt; nine years of deprivation of liberty for an offense against the constitutional order and, as a joint and sole sanction, ten years of deprivation of liberty,” the text details.
The young woman could be subject to additional sanctions based on articles 42.1, 52.1 and 59.1 of the Criminal Code, which include the deprivation of rights, the confiscation of property and the prohibition to leave the Island.
Additional sanctions may apply, including deprivation of rights, confiscation of property, and prohibition from leaving the Island
According to the charges, the young woman’s actions aimed at “changing the political, economic and social order established in the Constitution of the Republic” and referring to the slogan: “To the Street, Until Triumph, Homeland and Life.”
The young woman’s mother, Norma Pérez Ferrer, denounced in Martí Noticias that in the prosecutor’s request “there are things that didn’t happen, things that are true, but things that are lies.”
The Prosecutor’s Office, as pointed out in the indictments, will present various pieces of evidence . Among them are a statement from Martínez Pérez and the results of a search of her phone and her home in Las Guásimas, Arroyo Naranjo, Havana.
Last April a “confession” was shown on television in which Salem Cuba incriminated herself: “The publications I made were all against the revolutionary process, either against the president, against the Government, against the party, against everything.”
Salem Cuba “gave two interviews,” her mother said. “The first one was the one they published and the second one was the one she made under normal circumstances, the real one,” her mother denounced
However, the detainee’s mother clarified that in Villa Marista, the State Security headquarters in Havana “they gave her (Martínez Pérez) a piece of paper so that she could read everything, everything, what she had to say.” The woman said in a video, “They tricked her because they told her that if she said all that, they were going to release her and in the end, they did not release her at all.” She reported that her daughter was shown on television and “they did not call her lawyer to be with her.”
Last March, the woman informed the Cuban journalist Monica Baró, a resident of the United States, that the indictment against her daughter changed, from “propaganda against the constitutional order” to “instigation to commit a crime”, one of the crimes applied to many of the protesters of July 11, 2021.
Even though Martínez Pérez has no criminal record, the Prosecutor’s Office has insisted on maintaining the “precautionary measure of provisional detention.”
Salem Cuba is accused of “collecting several bottles” from Las Guásimas store to make “Molotov cocktails,” located 100 meters from her home, but her accusers clarify that the bottles were not taken.
Translated by LAR
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