MADRID, Spain.- The new Criminal Code of Cuba, which entered into force on December 1, increases to 24 crimes punishable by the death penalty, four more than in the 1987 regulations, denounced the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights ( OCDH).
Regarding this, the director of Strategy of the OCDH, Yaxys Cires, specified through a statement: “The death penalty is gaining strength in Cuba. After the approval of the new Penal Code, there were 24 crimes punishable by capital punishment. In this way, the Cuban State goes against the international tendency to abolish the death penalty, and tries to use the new norm to threaten, even with death, those who try to change the situation of repression and misery.
The complaint highlights that the new Criminal Code provides for an article (120.1) that penalizes with prison, from four to ten years, whoever “arbitrarily exercises any right or freedom recognized in the Constitution of the Republic.”
Just as it indicates that it is criminalized and establishes a sentence of up to ten years in prison related to international cooperation activities or financial assistance to independent civil society projects, outside of state control, “which, in addition to going against a right recognized by the United Nations Organization (UN) to civil society, is an obstacle to assistance to the impoverished Cuban people”.
The document from the Madrid-based human rights organization states that last November there were at least 352 repressive actions on the island. Of these, 121 were some type of arbitrary detention, and 231, other abuses, such as police summons, fines, internet and telephone cuts, trials, threats, forced exile or impediment to leave the country.
This repressive scheme is repeated every month, but “now the Cuban regime has a new tool to further violate rights fundamentals of citizens.
Faced with this situation, the OCDH demanded that democratic governments, the European Union and international organizations repudiate Havana’s decision to increase the crimes punishable by the death penalty and the rest of the arbitrariness present in the new Penal Code”.
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