MADRID, Spain.- The NGO Prisoners Defenders verified that during the month of January the Cuban regime added another 37 people imprisoned for political reasons; for a total of 1,077. These are classified as Convicted of Conscience (783), Convicted of Conscience (263) and Other Political Prisoners (31). Of them, 36 are minors (31 boys and five girls); 30 serving sentences and six are being criminally prosecuted.
The 37 new arrests are mainly due to protests that took place throughout the country, but also “due to the persecution of opinions on social networks, disaffected positions of the so-called ‘revolution'” and defense of human rights against the criminal regime of Havana.”
In its monthly report Prisoners Defenders also announced that 17 political prisoners were released in January, the majority after full compliance with the sanction imposed.
Likewise, he denounced that there are several elements that give the regime freedom to abuse and violate the rights of this type of prisoner.
Among these elements are: the absence of judicial protection for the precautionary deprivation of liberty; the non-existence of independent defense lawyers in Cuba; the absolute organic dependence of the hierarchy and the judges of the penal system with respect to political power; the criminal proceedings in which all accusations, without exception, are supported solely by “witnesses” dependent on the Communist Party of Cuba; and the widespread use of summary and abbreviated violative criminal procedures.
Regarding this situation, the document states that “the lack of due process and effective defense have facilitated a generalized repression of the population, which flees as a victim of repression and lack of prospects while the hardening of the current Penal Code criminalizes a range of endless list of grounds for persecution for the exercise of any fundamental right protected by the Universal Declaration of Rights”.
