(EFE).- The Cuban government continues “repressing and punishing practically all kinds of dissidence and public criticism” on the island, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced this Thursday in its 2022 world report.
The section on Cuba of the usual annual study on the global state of human rights highlights the “brutal repression” carried out in the country after the massive and spontaneous July 11 anti-government protests, the largest in decades.
The NGO collects more than 1,000 arrests of protesters, mostly peaceful; “systematic” and “arbitrary” arrests of activists, artists and journalists motivated by intimidation; as well as sites of dissidents in their homes.
At this point, he mentions the arrests of members of dissident artists’ groups, including the Movimiento San Isidro, 27N and Archipiélago, as well as people related to the protest song Homeland and Life, converted into an anthem of the July demonstrations because it paraphrased the motto of the revolution “Fatherland or death” and criticized the repression in the country.
In this last group of imprisoned activists are Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara Y Maykel Castillo osorb, which appeared in the video of Homeland and Life.
The report also highlights the detention of “political prisoners”, their processing “without judicial guarantees”, the “disproportionate” sentences and the use of “summary trials” after the July 11 protests, in which a justice system “subordinated in practice” to the Executive.
The report criticizes the restrictions on the right to information and freedom of the press and expression, tightened in the middle of last year with a new cybersecurity law
HRW denounces in particular the case of the opponent Joseph Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Cuban Patriotic Union, an organization considered illegal in Cuba. He was arrested on July 11 when he was heading to the rally.
Ferrer was sentenced in August to more than four years in prison, considering a court that did not “strictly respect the laws” or have an “honest attitude towards work”, sufficient reasons for imprisonment in his situation, because he was already serving a sentence prior -“arbitrary”, according to HRW- of “freedom restrictions” for assault.
Likewise, the report criticizes the restrictions on the right to information and freedom of the press and expression, tightened in the middle of last year with a new cybersecurity law. The NGO recalls that independent journalism continues to be prohibited on the Island.
He also points out that “journalists, bloggers, influencers of social networks, artists and academics who publish information considered critical” with the Government are subjected routinely to “threats, violence, smear campaigns, movement restrictions, internet outages, cyberbullying, home and office searches, confiscation of work material, and arbitrary arrests.”
It also accounts for the limitations on freedom of movement to enter or leave the country for activists, journalists and dissidents.
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