HAVANA, Cuba.- The Cuban Osvaldo Lugo Pita denounced from the Habana Combinado del Este prison that he is being held captive as punishment for having participated in the popular protests that took place on July 11 and 12, 2021 throughout the entire island.
Lugo Pita, 35, a resident of La Güinera, Arroyo Naranjo municipality in the capital, says that on July 12 he witnessed repressors throwing stones at protesters and also shooting at them with rubber bullets. He told CubaNet that he was one of those who dispersed and managed to slip away when police officers and riot troops known as “Avispas Negras” began shooting at them with lead bullets.
As he relates, he was arrested on July 17 at his home. Initially they took him to the DTI of the Capri cast, where they showed him a video in which he was seen with a stone in his hand, “something I didn’t deny because I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” he clarifies. That same day they took him to the PNR unit of the cast itself. Lugo Pita stresses that the next day at that station they beat him and “threw him headfirst” into the chase to transfer him to 100 and Aldabó.
The young protester added that during that period his relatives did not know his whereabouts. At 100 y Aldabó he lost track of time, he suffered threats and other kinds of psychological torture, for which he stood up and demanded to communicate with his family.
It was then that the agents located his wife and were able to speak with her on the phone. However, at the end of the conversation they immediately transferred him to the Combinado del Este, while his wife believed that he was still at 100 and Aldabó.
Osvaldo Lugo Pita adds that he makes a living as a self-employed vendor (with a license). His trial was held on January 24 and 25, 2022. The prosecutor’s request was for 21 years in prison for the alleged crime of sedition and his final sentence was 14 years in prison.
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