MADRID, Spain.- Prisoners Defenders (PD) verified that the Cuban regime keeps 1,066 political prisoners in jail. In its monthly reportthe NGO reported that 11 more were registered in the month of February than in January.
“With data closure as of February 28, 2023, the list of political prisoners in Cuba contains a total of 1,066 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience suffering judicial sentences or provisions of limitation of freedom by the prosecutors. (…) This month of February, 11 cases of new political prisoners in Cuba have entered our list, mainly due to the persecution of activists who collaborate in solidarity with the families of political prisoners to make their situation visible,” the organization based in Cuba specified. Madrid.
These prisoners are divided into Convicted of Conscience (787), Convicted of Conscience (284) and Other Political Prisoners (31).
1,066 Political Prisoners TODAY in #Cuba
➕ of 400 judicial processes analyzed in our complaint to @ONU_es demonstrate 7️⃣ patterns of violation of fundamental rights from detention to the imposition of sentences.
consult https://t.co/Rx2zccAxPP… https://t.co/qdT0rKFkrM pic.twitter.com/jsrcocX7Vx
— Prisoners Defenders (@PrisonersDFNdrs) March 13, 2023
The text also states that among these political prisoners are 34 minors (30 boys and four girls). Of them, 30 are serving sentences and four are being prosecuted.
Based on the analysis of more than 400 cases, Prisoners Defenders denounced: Absence of judicial protection for the precautionary deprivation of liberty; Lack of independent defense lawyers in Cuba; Absolute organic dependence of the hierarchy and the judges of the penal system with respect to political power; Criminal proceedings in which all accusations, without exception, are supported solely by “witnesses” dependent on the communist party and which are articulated with the fraudulent use of “expert” evidence allowed only by the Ministry of the Interior.
On March 2, Prisoners Defenders filed a complaint with these 400 cases before the United Nations, “which demonstrates with all legal rigor the systematic violation of rights in all cases of political prison in Cuba, with extensive patterns of violation of fundamental rights in all phases of the criminal process, from arrest to the imposition of sentences”.
The complaint has more than 5,000 pages of legal work in which more than ten jurists have intervened.
