Havana Cuba. – Cuban activist Manuel Santana Vega, a member of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic (MONR)has been confined for more than a month in the Technical Department of Investigations (DTI) of 100 and Aldabó, in Havana, under a supposed investigation.
Santana Vega was arrested on January 18, after agents from the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) carried out a police operation at his home, located in Santiago de las Vegas. As described by his sister, Rosalía Sánchez Vega, “the arrest was a bit violent, because without giving him any explanations they handcuffed him and pushed him into the patrol car.”
“First motorcycles arrived with officers in civilian clothes and then a patrol with about five police officers, everyone on top of him. They didn’t give any pretext or talk to anyone, they took him away and that’s it. Then they wanted to raid the house, without a search warrant, but I didn’t let them, until they came back with a piece of paper, ”he added.
At the time of her arrest, Santana Vega was carrying a knife that, according to her mother Tamara Vega Cardoso, she was going to use to sacrifice the animals for her saint. “That same day, I was crowned Yemayá, he is a babalawo and he was going to the house where I was making the saint,” she explained.
In addition to the knife, they also confiscated Orula’s ashé, a sacred powder used in the Yoruba religion, prepared with yams, cascarilla, among other components.
“Orula’s ashé was taken away to be analyzed in the laboratory. The lawyer says that in the unit they put it as “powdered vegetable mince, supposed drug”; the result should be in 15 days, but the instructor tells the lawyer that they are not there yet, they have been analyzing it for almost 30 days,” Tamara said.
Likewise, he said that when they entered the opponent’s house to search, “the only thing they found and took was 128,000 pesos, which were from the sale of his motorcycle four or five months ago.”
“I believe that the Police are doing this because he is in the opposition, to invent crimes for him, like the other time when all he did was demonstrate peacefully at the door of his house. I think they detained him because he was planning a national strike for January 28, the day of José Martí’s birth, and he was in contact with José Díaz Silva and Saúl Sánchez, ”explained the mother of the MONR delegate.
Currently, Manuel Santana Vega is serving a sentence of one year and eight months in house arrest for the alleged crimes of spreading epidemics and disobedience.
His first arrest was on September 7, 2020.when MININT officers dressed in civilian clothes and without identifying themselves broke down the door of his home without a search warrant.
On that occasion, he demanded “freedom for his people”, the “end of the dictatorship” and an end to the abuse against political prisoners. After serving one year and two days in provisional prison, in Valle Grande Penitentiarywas transferred to home confinement on September 9, 2021.
The opponent was arrested again at the end of December 2021 at the “Juan Gualberto Gómez” International Airport in Varadero, when he was preparing to board a flight to Russia. On December 23, he was to attend his trial, scheduled for that date in the Marianao Court; however, he did not appear because he learned that none of his witnesses had been summoned for the hearing.
