The Attorney General’s Office of the Republic of Cuba launched this Friday a harsh warning against those who participated in the recent protests over the long blackouts after the passage of Hurricane Ian. Through an informative note, he assured that he was investigating the events that “disturbed public order and citizen tranquility.”
As happened with 11J, the Prosecutor’s Office attributes to the demonstrators the “burning of facilities, the execution of acts of vandalism, the closure of public roads in order to prevent the movement of vehicles and people, the aggressions and offenses against officials and forces of order, and incitement to violence”.
The threat becomes more emphatic when directed at the parents who “used” their minor children, whom the institution accuses of having neglected “their duties of protection, assistance, education and care towards them.”
The Prosecutor’s Office affirms that “they will receive the corresponding legal-criminal response.”
The statement does not provide information on how many Cubans have been charged or imprisoned during the protests. On October 7, the organization Justicia 11J published an update about the detainees, based on the statements of their relatives and other information.
According to the NGO, they will be prosecuted for the crimes of public disorder, contempt and resistance, although it cannot provide the exact number of people incarcerated either, which around thirty according to various organizations.
Justice 11J offered to send the families any audiovisual material or document that could be useful in the trial and demanded “the cooperation of civil society and the independent press”
Justice 11J offered to send the families any audiovisual material or document that could be useful in the trial and demanded “the cooperation of civil society, the independent press and the accredited foreign press to make this injustice visible.”
This Wednesday, a resident of Bejucal, in the province of Mayabeque, story a 14ymedio that during the protests that took place in that municipality on Monday night there was no police repression. However, the next day the parents were summoned to the schools for a meeting with the municipal prosecutors.
There they were warned that “the law” protected them to make them serve two to seven years in prison if they allowed their minor children to participate in the protests. In addition, those who were over 16 years old would be sentenced to house arrest.
The new Penal Code stipulates, in its article 407, that commits a crime “whoever induces a person under eighteen years of age to leave their home, skip school, reject the educational work inherent to the national education system or fail to comply with their duties related to with respect and love for the country.
The foreseen sanction, however, is “deprivation of liberty for six months or one year or a fine of one hundred to three hundred quotas, or both,” not two to seven years in prison, as the Bejucal prosecutors threaten.
The passage of Hurricane Ian aggravated the energy crisis that the Island was going through and sparked off a new wave of protests against blackouts and shortages.
Some neighborhoods in Havana were without electricity for up to six consecutive days after the hurricane. Blackouts reach twelve hours in some parts of the country. the independent media Inventory Project It has registered around a hundred in the last fifteen days based on testimonies and videos broadcast on social networks.
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