This Wednesday, almost a year and a half after they were arrested, the trial begins in Havana of 15 participants in the massive demonstrations on July 11, 2021.
Among them is Jonathan Torres, one of the 59 minors arrested by 9/11 –he turned 17 that same day–, accused of public disorder and attack and for whom the Prosecutor’s Office is requesting 8 years in prison.
Torres’s mother, Bárbara Farrat Guillén, who became one of the most active faces in the fight for the release of political prisoners, was notified last week that she would have to appear as a witness in the trial against her son, who was expected to finish on Thursday.
“Other adolescents have contracted scabies, dengue, covid and other infections in that same detention center”
As denounced by the Justice 11J platform, linked to the legal organization Cubalex, the woman was the victim of “the lack of instruction and lack of legal protection”, since “she should have been informed about her right not to testify against her son, according to Article 255.1 of the Criminal Procedure Law”, which establishes that the ascendants, descendants, partner and close relatives of the defendant may excuse themselves from testifying.
The young man, recalls the NGO, was released on bail on May 25, “after months of denouncing the denial of medical care for his hypertension and other events of physical and psychological torture.”
In July, he had to be hospitalized, says Justice 11J, due to hepatitis contracted in the Jóvenes de Occidente prison, where he was being held. “Other adolescents have contracted scabies, dengue, covid and other infections in that same detention center,” says the platform.
The trial, which takes place eight months after the Prosecutor’s Office issued its conviction request, corresponds to file 833, which includes 14 more protesters who took to the streets in the Havana municipality of Diez de Octubre and who are facing high prison sentences for the crimes of assault, contempt, public disorder and incitement to commit a crime:
1. Richard Jorge Hierrezuelo (36 years old at the time of his arrest), 13 years in prison requested by the Prosecutor’s Office.
2. Ernesto Brieva Sempé (48), 12 years old
3. Maykel Arnaldo Reyes Alvarez (40), 12 years old
4. Hansel Felipe Arbolay Prim (28), 11 years old
5. Omar Bravo Cruzata (22), 11 years old
6. Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez Santiesteban (51), 11 years old
7. Yuniel Blanco Jimenez (35), 10 years old
8. Luis Daniel Carrillo Urquiola (18), 10 years old
9. Kelvin Edward Charles Matos (18), 10 years old
10. Alejandro Flores Rubio (22), 10 years old
11. Andro Ledesma Prieto (18), 10 years old
12. Kevin Lázaro Pimentel Oduardo (19), 10 years old
13. Rudyelis Ulloa López (36), 10 years old
14. Dayana Camejo Ramos (34 years old, the only woman in the group), 7 years old
Justice 11J highlights among those defendants Andro Ledesma Prieto, who was 18 years old at the time of his arrest and who has “learning and psychological problems” that have been denounced. “He lost his mother at the age of 13 and tells his sister that if he is sentenced to 10 years for the crimes of attack and public disorder, as the petition says, he will commit suicide, because he will not bear living like this,” he warned. Salomé García Bacallao, collaborator of Cubalex.
In addition, Omar Bravo Cruzata’s sister, Yesenia Díaz, was arrested on November 15 to prevent her from being present at the US Embassy in Havana, where she was going to meet, along with other relatives of political prisoners, officials from the US Department of State.
Also arrested were Migdalia Gutiérrez Padrón, mother of Brusnelvis Cabrera, one of the protesters from La Güinera, sentenced to 10 years in prison after a cassation trial, and Wilber Aguilar, father of Walnier Aguilar, also from La Güinera, who was reduced the sentence of 22 to 12 years for the crime of sedition and that he has, according to various organizations, “slight mental retardation”.
Omar Bravo Cruzata’s sister, Yesenia Díaz, was arrested on November 15 to prevent her presence at the US Embassy in Havana
Similarly, Jenni Taboada, mother of Duannis Dabel León; Yesenia Díaz, sister of Óscar and Omar Bravo Cruzata, and Luis Rodríguez, husband of Angélica Garrido; Liset Fonseca, mother of Roberto Pérez, and Jorge Martín and Marta Perdomo, parents of Jorge and Nadir Perdomo.
On the other hand, on Friday the sentence of Pedro Albert Sánchez and other Guanabacoa detainees included in the same case, 68/2022, is expected to be known. The professor was released on October 28 in Havana, where he had been imprisoned since November 3, 2021, in the days prior to the frustrated Civic March for Change on November 15.
From that day, Justice 11J also recalls, Roilán Zárraga Ferrer, Fernando Vázquez Guerra, Daniel Alberto Bermúdez Periche, José Eduardo Jardines Rodríguez, Humberto Bello Lafita and José Hernández López are still detained.
In total, since 11J, the platform has registered 1,767 arrests in Cuba: 758 people are still in prison, 685 have been tried and dozens are awaiting trial, from jail or on probation.
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