Havana/After more than nine months of being in prison without trial, the mother of rapper Fernando Almenares Rivera, known as Nando Obdc, managed to have the formal accusation in his possession. “In the end I had to come to the court to photograph them, because they could never send them by mail,” says Eva Rivera with 14ymediowhom he showed the document, dated June 17.
In it, the Prosecutor’s Office asks for six years in prison for the crime of “propaganda against constitutional order.” According to the Orwellian story of the events, at the end of August last year, Almenares wrote in pieces of sheets “using a pink substance” the words: “Cuba first in the streets for human rights”, “We want changes and Cuba first” and “Cuba first” and then hung them “between the bridge of the east combined and the bridge of the town of Santa Fe, Guanabaco municipality any time of the day, where even public transport buses of the capital are circulating. ”
For the Fiscal Ministry, these are “phrases with counterrevolutionary content”, placed “in a place where they could be seen by passers -by, with the purpose of provoking social disorders, altering citizen tranquility and creating discontent in the population, highlighting, in addition, in each of these, the objectives pursued by an organization not legally not legally recognized in Cuban territory, thus inciting this way against the social order established in the country Republic “.
These are “phrases with counterrevolutionary content”, placed “in a place where they could be seen by passersby, with the purpose of provoking social disorders”
The text emphasizes that the artist “maintained relations” with “members of the counterrevolutionary organization Cuba first” – organization to which Daniel Alfaro Frías, José Antonio Pompa López and Lázaro Mendoza García, to whom they sentenced nine, eight and five years in prison belong this week-, and ensures that it was that organization, through the “Cuban -American citizen Armando Labrador Coro”, who sent Nando Obdc “the sum of 200 dollars” in early September 2024.
The formal accusation contradicts the first version of the authorities, who justified that the detention From Almenares Rivera, on December 31 of last year at home, in La Lisa, it was for acts of “terrorism” for “a fire that occurred in Lenin Park, on December 30”, in which he had allegedly participated.
In the legal document, in addition, the properties confiscated to the rapper, which would constitute crime tests: a blue Samsung brand with a blue color protector ”, 545 pesos that“ were deposited available to the court in the bank agency of the Metropolitan Bank ”and“ Four pieces of sheets with the counterrevolutionary texts painted, which are attached to the actions as a piece of conviction ”.
It is also said in the fiscal request that Almenares is in the east combined, although it is currently in the Cuba Panama prison, located in Güines, Mayabeque, destined for HIV/AIDS patients. His mother He has publicly denounced That they keep him in that place, when he does not have this condition.
“There are tuberculosis inside, there are bedbugs, scabies, all kinds of diseases and I told Fernando not to be pricked for anyone because they could inoculate the virus,” Eva Rivera declared Martí News Last September. The woman explained that the prison director reproached him for her son to refuse to receive the therapy they give to the rest of the prisoners. “A therapy that give patients those, who have their treatment, their medicine,” Rivera clarified, who said he had told the official: “Under my responsibility, I do not allow Fernando to click or take any kind of therapy, because Fernando does not have any disease.”
At the end of July, the rapper was on hunger, to protest to have incommunicado in prison.
The musician’s activism was already in the sights of the authorities for some time. In November 2021, he was summoned to the seventh unit of the Revolutionary National Police for his publications in social networks.
Only last September there were at least 212 repressive actions in Cuba against the civilian population, of which 39 were arbitrary arrests
Penalties and repression against freedom of expression, in a country in which citizens only demand a minimum floor to live, have hardened in recent years. He Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), based in Madrid, reported on Tuesday that only last September there were at least 212 repressive actions in Cuba against the civilian population, of which 39 were arbitrary arrests.
The majority of these cases were “short -term (27)” and were related to the peaceful demonstration in Gibara (Holguín), on September 13, where the neighbors took to the streets with shouts of claim as “current and food!”, “The united people will never be defeated!” and “freedom, freedom!”
“It has been a black month for freedom of expression, due to convictions and judgments. The regime wants to infuse terror before its resounding socioeconomic failure and its inability to seek solutions,” said OCDH.
According to the report, in September, “the Cuban regime deepened the penalty of freedom of expression in social networks and the peaceful demonstration. We have known the sentence against Ana Ibis Trista Padilla and Jarol Varona Agüero, which condemns them to 14 and 13 years in jail, respectively, for ‘propapaganda against the constitutional order’ and ‘Other acts against the security of the State’. And for ‘propaganda against the constitutional order’ Pérez Ruiz (five years) and Cristhian de Jesús Peña Aguilera (four years), all for sharing on social networks the call to a peaceful manifestation that, in fact, was not carried out, ”recalled the observatory.
In the country, since last January, there are already 2,462 repressive actions against the population “in order to prevent or limit the exercise of civil and political rights in Cuba. Of these, 461 have been arbitrary arrests.”
