The Supreme People’s Court (TSP) of Cuba has applied very significant reductions to the sentences of a group of convicts who appealed after being sentenced for the 11J demonstrations in the Havana neighborhood of La Güinera. The resolution, according to Cuban newspaper, It provides for reductions of between 7 and 10 years in prison, but given the severity of the sanctions, those affected will continue to have to spend many years in prison.
None of those who appealed were acquitted or released.
Wilmer Moreno, sentenced to 26 years in prison, must serve 18 after the reduction; Roberto Pérez Ortega goes from 25 to 17; and Walnier Aguilar, from 23 to 12. Luis Frómeta Compte, a German national who was visiting Cuba on 11J, also maintains a high sentence. Although he obtained a reduction of 10 years, he will have to spend 15 in prison -compared to the initial 25- and despite the fact that the ruling indicates that he did not commit violent acts, but “incited the protesters”.
Other reductions are those of Katia Beirut, Freddy Beirut, Odet Hernández and Reinier Reynosa, convicted of recording the marches and “calling others to demonstrate”. Their sentences, between 20 and 18 years, are reduced to 10 or 9 years.
The court, according to the newspaperindicates that the harshness of the sentences lies in the fact that “although they did not directly carry out the violent acts that are described, their tacit will is unequivocally confirmed by joining the events and inciting the rest of the inhabitants of that locality to join and exercise the force against the local authorities, as it happened, in addition to making films and uploading them to the networks for the same purposes”.
In addition, and with regard to the crime of sedition that was applied to several convicted for the protests in this humble neighborhood of Havana, they add: “The acts committed by the accused constitute a direct disapproval of the goals of the socialist State, since both in the Constitution of the Republic in its Article 45, as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations Organization, limits are established to the exercise of the rights of the people, provided that they do not affect the rights of others, nor collective security, general welfare, respect for public order, the Constitution and the laws”.
The sentences imposed on the protesters in La Güinera were made public in March, along with those of those who protested at the Toyo corner. In total, 129 people were included in six files and only one was exonerated. The rest received sentences that added 1,916 years in prison.
The only fatality reported by the authorities, Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, was shot in the back by a police officer in this humble neighborhood of Havana.
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