Víctor Ruiz, the activist who accompanied the relatives of Andy García Lorenzo arrested this Tuesday in Santa Clara, he was also interrogated and threatened for a few hours this Wednesday by State Security.
The young man received a warning for “incitement to commit a crime”, they confiscated his phone and imposed a fine of 3,000 pesos. “They seem to be very afraid of July 11 and they want people not to go out,” Ruiz explained to this newspaper in an audio message.
In a live broadcast Through Facebook, the young man recounted how first thing in the morning, when he was leaving his house on his way to work as a bricklayer’s assistant, he was intercepted by two political police officers who arrested him “quite abruptly.”
In the unit they took him to, they did “what they always do,” in Ruiz’s words: “threaten,” “blackmail” and “humiliate one.” The “central idea”, he continues, is that “I was nobody, that I am a fool”, all this to try “to make people afraid”. The agents, he assures him, even threatened him with death.
“Anything that happens to me, of course it’s their fault,” he said in his video. “No one is going to change what I think and I’m going to continue to be the way I am. I think I’m on the right track.”
“Anything that happens to me, of course it’s their fault,” he said in his video. “No one is going to change what I think and I will continue to be the way I am”
Andy García’s brother-in-law, Jonatan López, arrested this Tuesday, was released at night, but a process was opened for disobedience. His father, Pedro López, put in the police unit to protest the arrest of the son, was released this Wednesday but the charge of instigation to commit a crime was lifted.
Andy’s sister and Jonatan’s wife, Roxana García Lorenzo, had denounced in a video on Facebook that in recent days the harassment to which State Security has subjected his family has intensified.
Andy García Lorenzo, 24, was sentenced to four years in prison in a trial held in Santa Clara on January 10, together with 15 other protesters who took to the streets on July 11. The Prosecutor’s Office originally requested seven years in prison for him for public disorder, contempt and attack.
However, after the appeal trial, on May 25, he was released to continue his sentence in a work camp.
Since his arrest, his family has been one of the most active in defending political prisoners and freedom of expression, and has repeatedly denounced State Security harassment.
Andy’s father, Nedel Garcia Pacheco, was stabbed on February 4, while he was fishing with some friends. An acquaintance began to hurl insults at the imprisoned son, then lunged at him with a knife.
At that time, Roxana blamed State Security for the event: “Because in case it is not directly to blame, it is indirectly due to all the hatred it has sown through the media against the July 11 protesters. “.
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