AREQUIPA, Peru – The Cienfuegos Prosecutor’s Office is seeking two years and six months in prison for Cuban opposition leader José Manuel Barreiro Rouco after accusing him of “carrying out degrading and offensive actions that affect the honor and integrity of important figures of the Cuban Revolution.”
The fact transcended in a publication by journalist José Raúl Gallego, who denounced the extremes of the Cuban dictatorship, which he described as “one of the most repressive and extremist social experiments in the world.”
“Two years and six months in prison for, get this, sharing in a Messenger group of 11 people called Family, ‘images in which degrading epithets were attributed’ to Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro and Fidel Castro,” the Cuban professor also wrote on Facebook.
“You don’t have to go to Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan or anywhere else to exemplify what it means to live in flagrant violation of human rights more basic,” Gallego added.
José Manuel Barreiro Rouco, 53 years old and a barber by profession, is a well-known activist in Aguada de Pasajeros, Cienfuegos province. Since the founding of the independent organization Movimiento Ciudadano Reflexión y Conciliación in 2010, he has been involved in it under the leadership of opposition member Juan Alberto de la Nuez Ramírez.
The request for a sentence by the Cuban regime’s Prosecutor’s Office would add to the six months of imprisonment without trial that the activist has already suffered in the worst conditions.
This Monday, the non-governmental organization Prisoners Defenders reported that by the end of August 2024 in Cuba There were 1,105 political prisoners, 14 fewer than the previous month.
In your monthly reportThe Madrid-based NGO noted that two new prisoners were added for political reasons, while 16 were removed from the list due to suicide, forced expatriation or having fully served their sentences.
In the statement, the organization highlighted the “horrible situation that prisoners live in, starving, sick, without medical care and tortured.” It also warned about the “hell” suffered by at least 62 prisoners with mental health disorders, who do not receive psychiatric care or medication and are often victims of abuse.
