A total of 21 extrajudicial executions have been committed by the island’s authorities since July 2021, denounces the organization Archivo Cuba. “They are part of the 4,374 murders attributed to the Cuban regime documented to date (partial list) since January 1, 1959, of which 3,069 are executions without due legal process,” says the NGO, based in Miami, in a statement made public this Sunday.
Three 9/11 protesters appear on the list, one of them not registered by the organization until now. This is Aiser Roque Rivero, 18, who, according to the report, had been arrested and fined for participating in the massive demonstrations that day in Placetas, Villa Clara. On May 2, 2023, he was arrested in that same city, the text refers to, accused by an ex-girlfriend of “threats and housebreaking”: “The police took him a few hours later to the hospital, where it was said that he had died of asphyxiation by suicide. His family reported that he was a cheerful person and not suicidal; they believe that he was killed by the police.”
The other two deceased protesters had already been included by Archivo Cuba in a report last year. One is Laurencio Tejedathe only person killed in the repression of July 11 recognized by authorities (he was assassinated from behind in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, Havana, on July 12, by police officer Yoennis Pelegrín, who had fired into the unarmed crowd), and the other, Christian Barrera Díaz, 24, allegedly shot on July 12 by black berets that prevented their departure by sea from Playa Larga, in Matanzas.
Among the “unarmed civilians killed by the police”, the organization includes the case of Zinedine Zidane Batista Alvarez, 17, “beaten and shot to death by police lieutenant Alexis René Hernández García,” on July 1, 2022 in El Condado, Santa Clara. His father, who had denounced the official version of the event, was brought to trial several months later.
“Police took him to hospital a few hours later, where he was said to have died of suffocation by suicide. His family reported that he was a cheerful person and not suicidal.”
It also includes in that category the murders of Dr. Damaris Rodríguez Domínguez and her partner, the paramedic Luis Miguel Bartoló Tamayo, shot by the doctor’s ex-partner, a police officer.
Along with them are also listed Roldy Polo Perez45, who was shot by police officer Roelvis Mendoza during an argument, and Sergio Pozo Hernández, 26, “beaten to death on February 26, 2023 by a police officer for not stopping when he went through a traffic control on his motorcycle.” road at the exit of Caletón Blanco beach, Santiago de Cuba”.
Cuba Archive collects the death “in custody” of five prisoners: the activist Alfonso Chaviano Peláez, in May 2022; Exduyn Urgellés Huete, unfairly accused of having stolen a gold chain, in October 2022; Kevin Canlo Morales, in March 2023, beaten by the deputy director of the prison; Jamaican Christopher O’Brien Bernard, 43, and Ulices Claro Peña, 32, also for beatings, in November 2022, at the hands of prison guards from the Kilo 8 prison, Camagüey. Regarding the latter, the NGO adds that her mother “believes that her organs were removed, since she did an autopsy without permission from the family.”
Lastly, Archivo Cuba registers as extrajudicial executions those murdered while trying to leave the island. In addition to the seven deceased in Bahía Honda -Nathali Acosta Lemus, Yerandy García Meizoso, Israel Gómez, Aimara Meizoso León, Omar Reyes Valdés, Indira Serrano Cala and the two-year-old baby Elizabeth Meizoso-, there is the case of William Padrón Maz. He died on March 1, 2022 at sea, north of Cayo Coco, in Ciego de Ávila, reports the NGO, “when the boat in which he was trying to escape Cuba with 20 other people was repeatedly rammed by a boat from the Cuban Border Guard”.
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