The protesting rapper Denis Solís has been in Germany for a few days with an aunt, an uncle and a cousin, as reported to 14ymedio the activist Daniela Rojo, who is in the same shelter in Nuremberg. Together with his relatives, the artist crossed the borders on foot from Serbiawhere was since he forcibly left the islandat the end of last year, after an arbitrary sentence of eight months in prison.
“His immediate plans are to wait for the political asylum application process to be completed in Germany, which is slow,” he tells this newspaper Rojo, who together with his two children is in the same reception process.
The arrest of Denis Solís in November 2020, and the subsequent conviction for contempt in a summary trial, opened the spigot for the protests of the San Isidro Movement, led by the artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo osorbboth currently prisoners of conscience.
Its members then began a hunger strike at its headquarters in Havana, from which they were violently evicted by State Security agents disguised as toilets with the excuse of measures to contain the covid-19 pandemic.
The event triggered a protest of more than 300 artists who gathered before the Ministry of Culture to ask for dialogue with the authorities and gave rise to the 27N group, also the seed of Archipelago, led by the playwright Yunior Garcia Aguileralater exiled in Spain.
“His immediate plans are to wait for the process of requesting political asylum in Germany to be finished, which is slow”
Solís’ release occurred in July 2021, after serving eight months in prison. Shortly after, to escape the harassment of the Cuban authorities, he took a flight to Moscow in the direction of Serbia, where Cubans are exempt from visas.
The same type of coercion by the regime suffered relatives of Andy Garcia Lorenzoimprisoned for demonstrating on July 11, 2021 in Santa Clara, who are also seeking asylum in Germany.
He specified it this Thursday in a direct transmission on Facebook Pedro Lopez, father of Andy’s brother-in-law, Jonatan López. Both, accompanied by Pedro’s wife and his youngest daughter, 15, left the island on November 3.
In his publication, Pedro López shows the Giessen refugee camp, where they are, and warns those who want to emigrate by the same route that it is “a very difficult process.”
In any case, he clarifies that his process “is not the norm”: “we had to flee from State Security.” Although the conditions are complicated, he asserts, “better here than in prison.”
As I had anticipated in another video Roxana García Lorenzo, Jonatan’s wife, the only one who stayed in Cuba, gave López an “ultimatum”: he would be imprisoned if he was still on the island on November 3.
Pedro López shows the Giessen refugee camp, where they are, and warns those who want to emigrate by the same route that it is “a very difficult process”
“My brother from prison spent a long time asking us to please leave the country, that he did not want us to continue going through all these things, that he did not want us to be in the same place where he is, with the terrible conditions that It’s there. He repeated to us all the time that we had no idea what it’s like to be in there, “explained Roxana, who recalled that her brother has been in prison for a year and a half.
The 24-year-old was sentenced to four years on January 10, along with 15 other protesters who took to the streets during 11J, for public disorder, contempt and attack.
Following an appeal in late May, he was “temporarily released”, pending “continuation of serving his sentence in an open field”. A few days later he was arrested on the street when he was traveling with his father on a motorcycle and transferred to El Yabú.
Since he was arrested, his family has been one of the most active in defending the political prisoners of 11J and has repeatedly denounced the harassment they have suffered from State Security.
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