MIAMI, United States. – The NGO Justice 11J reported this monday on an increase in hostility against Cuban activists and opponents during March and so far in April, which includes multiple short-term detentions and deprivations of liberty under investigative processes or under the imposition of precautionary measures and prosecution of seven opponents of the regime .
Specifically, the organization expressed concern about events in which State Security and prison officers have attacked women.
In early March, 10 9/11 protesters wrote a letter in the Mujeres de Occidente prison asking Cuban ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel to comply with Pope Francis’ request to release the protesters of July 2021. In response, all women in the prison were temporarily banned from using the paper and writing letters.
The opposition member and political prisoner Lizandra Góngora, mother of five children, was sent to the Isla de la Juventud women’s prison, separated by sea and more than 160 kilometers from her family. Previously, the lady in white and member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) Aymara Nieto suffered a similar punishment. Other protesters, such as George Ramírez Rodríguez, Daniel Moreno and Maikel Puig Bergolla, have also been victims of this method.
Brenda Díaz, convicted of participating in the July protests, was punished with a new trial on Friday, April 14, after defending one of her colleagues who “had been offended because of his sexual orientation.”
Three new political prisoners, Aniette González García, Ienelis Delgado Cué (Mambisa Agramontina) and Leidyana Cazañas Amador, join the list of at least 71 women detained in the country. They are accused of “insulting the symbols of the Homeland”, “contempt for authority” and causing the alleged burning of fruit trees, respectively.
The Justice 11J report also refers to the case of the young woman Zulmira Martinez Perez (Salem), who was arrested on January 10, after posting on Facebook her intention to demonstrate publicly. State Security accused her of generating “harmful and misleading content in digital spaces.”
In addition, the NGO denounced the interrogation of a seven-year-old girl, daughter of the Camagüeyan opposition member Marisol Peña Cobas, in a process that seeks to separate mother and daughter due to the activist’s rejection of the indoctrination of her daughter at school.
Justice 11J requested support in the visibility of these and other complaints, as well as in the claim to the Cuban State in relation to compliance with protocols, treaties and international conventions on human rights, which guarantee the physical, mental and emotional security of people under their custody and their relatives.
In this sense, the NGO urgently urged human rights and humanitarian assistance organizations to pay attention to the prisons in Cuba (#MirenLasPrisionesDeCuba).
