“In the light of recent world events, the European Union will have to decide whether it prefers to have the repressors or us, the repressed, among its preferred interlocutors.” This is how forceful the Cuban opponent Guillermo Coconut Farinas your speech before the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliamentin Brussels, this Thursday.
In it, Fariñas stressed that his visit to the community institutions coincides with the “special moment for Europe and for all of Western civilization” that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine entails, which, the opponent described, “in addition to being an abuse and a violation of international law, is a clear threat to democracy and the European project”.
Faced with this, the position of the Cuban regime, he believes, “shameful.”
Fariñas took advantage of the occasion to remind the Subcommittee that last year the island suffered “at least 9,705 repressive actions” against the population, including 2,717 arbitrary arrests and 3,743 illegal detentions in homes.
In addition, there were some 60 acts of repudiation, which the activist called “fascistic”, and which take place “regardless of the presence of the elderly and children” at the hands of crowds at the service of State Security.
All this repression and “cruelty,” said Fariñas, takes place against “ordinary people and mostly poor.”
At the same time, he mentioned that there are currently more than 1,000 political prisoners on the island, including minors, “unjustly deprived of their liberty for the fact of openly disagreeing with the policy of the Communist Party of Cuba or simply for shouting ‘patria y vida ‘, that anthem that is a song”.
He mentioned that there are more than 1,000 political prisoners on the island, including minors, “unjustly deprived of their liberty for the fact of openly disagreeing with the policy of the Communist Party of Cuba or simply for shouting ‘fatherland and life'”
The figure coincides with the one published this Thursday by Cuban Prisoners Defenders (CPD), which specifies that there are a total of 1,007 political prisoners verified by the organization. Of them, 869 are those arrested for demonstrating on July 11. As of March 2021, there were 135 on their list.
For the prisoners of 11J, Coco Fariñas had words indicating that they are being tried in processes “lacking guarantees, beginning with the right to be heard by independent and impartial judges”, and that many of them have been sentenced to prison sentences that exceed 20 years.
He also referred to those under 18 years of age and other young people “sick or with intellectual disabilities accused of the crime of sedition”, something denounced by numerous civil organizations.
Fariñas named some of those prisoners, including “his brothers” José Daniel Ferrer García, Félix Navarro Rodríguez, the Ladies in White Sayli Navarro Álvarez and Sissi Abascal, the artists Maykel osorb and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, in addition to others imprisoned by 11J, such as Andy García Lorenzo, the Perdomo brothers, Roberto Pérez Fonseca, Jonathan Torres Farrat, Carlos Alberto Hernández or Rowland Castillo.
“All of them, along with other Cubans who were already in prison on July 11, such as Yuri Valle Roca, Benigno Cruz Reina, Ernesto Boje Pérez, Humberto Villarreal Suárez, are imprisoned for exercising their rights, and from here I want to request their release. immediately and without exile”, exhorted Fariñas before the European Parliament.
The opponent was vehement: “Neither these Cubans nor their families deserve what they are living. I know many of them personally, and I affirm that they are not criminals nor did they assault any military barracks, as Fidel Castro and his brother did.”
Fariñas also mentioned, citing reports from the Cuban Human Rights Observatory, that the majority of the island’s inhabitants, around 70% of the families, live below the poverty line, while stressing that the exiles, “insulted and vilified by the regime”, is the one that sustains at least a third of the population.
Before his severe final exhortation, the opponent said that none of the international measures towards the regime has worked to establish changes aimed at protecting human rights. On the contrary, Fariñas exemplified, the imminent new Penal Code “is more Stalinist than the previous one.”
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