HAVANA, Cuba.- The Cuban anthropologist and historian Jenny Pantoja Torres remains besieged in her home in Havana for the second consecutive day, she denounced CubaNet via telephone.
According to him, on Wednesday morning a State Security agent showed up at his home, preventing him from leaving it for the rest of the day and today, without a court order.
They also set up a police cordon around his house with at least eight political police officers: two uniformed police officers and six plainclothes officers (three men and two women).
The objective of the operation is to prevent her from going out into the street to carry out her peaceful protest, as she does every 18th, which she does with the teacher. Alina Barbara Lopez Hernandez to demand changes in the government structure in Cuba and the release of political prisoners.
“Today, July 18, marks one year since I began the monthly demonstrations with Alina B. López Hernández. One year ago today, I traveled to Matanzas for the first time with this objective,” he wrote on his Facebook profile in a text titled “Today, July 18 in Cuba, freedom is a dirty word.”
“Today is also Nelson Mandela International Day, a day of obligatory confrontation against injustice and dedicated to the fight for human rights and civil liberties. Today more than ever I raise my voice for a change in Cuba; for a national dialogue to be opened that allows the restoration of the liberties that are in the Constitution and that are dead letters, ‘showcase rights’ of the government in relation to other states but that are de facto unfulfilled by them and by their repressive forces,” he added.
A month ago, Pantoja Torres and López Hernández were brutally detained when they were traveling from the city of Matanzas to Havana to carry out their usual protest, this time in the capital.
Since then, Jenny Pantoja has been under house arrest, awaiting trial for the alleged crime of “attack.” However, this does not prevent her from leaving her home for work or to take care of her health.
Due to the operation, the anthropologist missed, for the second consecutive time, a postgraduate conference included in her work plan.
“If absences for unjustified reasons increase, the completion of an activity related to your doctoral degree is put at risk,” denounced the Observatory of Academic Freedom (OLA)
“We are facing another violation of Cuban law, which contemplates the performance of work and development activities for those who comply with the precautionary measure of house arrest,” explained the organization that is dedicated to documenting and denouncing human rights violations within Cuban universities.
Last week, the teacher was also besieged in her home during the commemoration of the third anniversary of the July 11 (11J) protests.
OLA also said that the “Cuban State insists on violating its own legal provisions, hindering their academic advancement and teaching work. With such actions, their right to decent work, contemplated in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, is violated.”
Jenny Pantoja, for her part, said that this action shows the fear of State Security. They have “a terrible fear that this country will get out of hand and that many people will decide to say what they think and openly criticize the government for its mistakes and failed policies. A visceral fear of losing the perks of power.”
He also said that he had been able to evade the police cordon and, as every day on the 18th, he was “with Martí, this time in the Plaza de la Revolución where his thoughts have been so distorted in empty speeches that lull the crowds.”
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