Rainel Rodríguez, the young activist who manages the Lunatic Debates channel and founder of the Alianza Juvenil Libertaria, was expelled from the Carlos Marx Vocational Pre-University Institute of Exact Sciences (IPVCE) in Matanzas, the Observatory of Academic Freedom (OLA) denounced this Saturday.
The 17-year-old was in the public eye after he the Cuban regime detained him for joining the civic marches on November 15, 2021. After a wave of indignation on social networks and pressure from international organizations, he was released, but the Observatory assures that the harassment by the director of the educational institute, Daneysi Acosta, who “considered him a stain” for the IPVCE, continued.
In a note, OLA points out that Rodríguez kept a “low profile” due to family pressure and decided to stay away from political issues on social networks. However, adds the Observatory, the director of the institute “orchestrated several plans to expel him definitively.” First, he was deprived of the right to take the exams so he remained in limbo to continue his studies. In addition, there was a confrontation between the teachers and the student and persuasion of other students with the “intention to take advantage of a ruling that warranted expulsion.”
He was deprived of the right to take the exams, so he remained in limbo to continue his studies. In addition, there was a confrontation between the teachers and the student
Finally, he was expelled for raising his voice to the chemistry teacher, Luis Ángel Santana Pereira, who had earlier hit him on the chest. The Observatory points out that “his separation from him from the academic center materialized immediately, without any legal document being issued and without the presence of his legal guardians,” despite the fact that he is required to be a minor. .
Rodríguez was transferred to an urban pre-university institute, always in Matanzas, where he has not been able to take the exams corresponding to two cuts, so, the organization anticipates, it is possible that he will lose the school year.
Rodniel Rodríguez, the minor’s brother, assured the Observatory that the young man suffered various abuses by IPVCE teachers. On one occasion, the director showed him “a graduate shirt and told him that he would never wear it,” nor did they let him pass the flag or stay in the Federation of High School Students (FEEM).
On condition of anonymity, a former FEEM president assured the Observatory that the institute practically “revolved around Rainel” and that there was even a meeting of the Board of Directors to “alert” when he began his tenth grade. “We were asked, as members of the student organization, to approach him to try to dissuade him from his political position,” said the source, who claims to be the one who alerted the teenager that “they were making his bed to get him out.”
“We were asked, as members of the student organization, to approach him to try and dissuade him from his political stance,” the source said.
According to this former president, Rodríguez had a normal academic activity, sometimes he made music and other times he participated in the work of an orchard. The IPvce director was “satisfied” with her “capacity to control” her. In a meeting in Havana, she continued her story, she “filled her mouth” saying that the institute had to be given credit for keeping students with “counterrevolutionary trajectories” at bay.
The Observatory denounced the limbo in which Rainel Rodríguez remains and “the constant harassment he received from the teaching staff” of IPVCE. In addition, he asked the authorities of the Ministry of Education to open an investigation to clarify the circumstances in which he was separated from his studies and to “punish” those involved in the violations of his rights as a student.
In the same way, the OLA demands an apology for the adolescent and his reinsertion to the institute without discrimination due to his political position, as well as guaranteeing him access to the exams that were denied to him.
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