The Cuban singer-songwriter Fernando Bécquer has been confined in a penitentiary center, according to a release published this Thursday by the People’s Provincial Court of Havana. The singer-songwriter was serving a penalty of “3 years and 4 months of limitation of freedom” (household) for sexual abuse.
According to the statement, Bécquer “recently committed serious acts that flagrantly and notoriously fail to comply with the requirements of good conduct and respect for the rules of social coexistence” to which he was obliged and “had been previously warned.” For this reason, the Popular Municipal Court of Centro Habana, on January 10, issued a new resolution in which it established that the troubadour “will comply with the sanction imposed in an internal regime in a penitentiary establishment.”
The sentence change was informed also this Thursday by the official affiliation media Qva Livewhich, with the testimony of “neighbors” of the building where the troubadour lives, confirmed that the sanction had been “reconsidered” and Bécquer was transferred to a “penitentiary center”.
A day earlier, activist Marta María Ramírez demanded transparency in the case by posting on Twitter that “several sources point” to the “imprisonment” of Bécquer on January 10 “after violating feminists in networks, in breach of the sentence.”
Bécquer “recently incurred in serious acts that flagrantly and notoriously fail to comply with the requirements of good conduct and respect for the rules of social coexistence”
The Bécquer case began last December 2021, when the independent magazine The sneeze public a report with testimonies from five young people who accused the musician, in a very detailed way, for different episodes of abuse between 10 and 20 years ago.
The singer-songwriter, known for his affinity with the regime and for his multiple connections with the artists closest to power, then denied the accusations and described them as “slander”. “I don’t believe anything, I believe in the Revolution”, assured at the end of a concert in Havana. Months later, some thirty women joined the complaints with their testimonies.
Last Tuesday, the Federation of Cuban Women denounced the singer-songwriter for the misogyny of the lyrics of two songs that he published on his networks. The official organization then considered that the lyrics of the songs are “disrespectful, highly violent against Cuban women” and points out that this type of actions “are intolerable and must be denounced and punished for constituting hate messages.”
The FMC, by expressly naming the troubadour, considered that the songs are not only evidence of the machismo that persists in society, but that they constitute a “mockery of justice” coming from a man who has been found “guilty of sexual violence.” . However, at the moment when the complaints of the abuses began to come to light, the mass organization issued a message of support to those affected without citing the musician and said that “guiding and accompanying the women in each process has been a priority.”
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