MIAMI, United States. – The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba added to its list of repressors four people whom it points out as participants in “two acts of repudiation orchestrated by State Security” in Camagüey against the head of the United States mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer.
According to a statement from the Foundation, it is Yoel Santiesteban Lópezidentified as head of the Organization Department of the Provincial Committee of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) in Camagüey; Yolanda Molina Castillosecretary of the UJC in the Camagüey municipality; Elsy Consuelo Tamayo Lópezmember of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in Camagüey; and Dayanny Frances Ferreraalso a member of the Provincial Committee of the UJC.
The text states that the first three “took part in the repudiation which took place on January 31 in front of the Santa María hotel, in the city’s Plaza del Gallo during a blackout. According to the same source, Hammer “was surrounded by men and women” who shouted slogans and insults at him such as “Down with the blockade,” “Donald Trump’s puppet,” “Murderer,” “Terrorist,” “Genocidal,” “Fascist,” “Get out of Camagüey” and “Take away the block from us and you will see what we are capable of.”
The press release adds that Dayanny Francés Ferrera recorded with her phone on the morning of February 1 the withdrawal of the diplomat and his companions on Agramonte Street and that she called them “assholes” “for leaving in cars and not on foot.”
The statement also maintains that “other participants” will join the project list “in the coming days.” In this relationship, he mentions Emilio González Fritze, teacher at the PCC provincial school; Yaimyr Victoria Basulto, head of the Ideological Department of the Provincial Committee of the PCC; Rafaela Castro Rondón, secretary of the official union at the Amalia Simoni Hospital; and Tamara Álvarez Loyola, PCC activist and leader of the UJC.
The initiative attributes the reconstruction of what happened and the identification of participants to the collaboration of “activists and citizens in Camagüey” with the exiled journalist José Luis Tan Estrada. In the same document, the project states that what happened “constitutes a breach by the Government of the Island of the obligation of the receiving State to protect accredited diplomats and prevent any attack against their person, freedom or dignity, stipulated by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations adopted in 1961.”
In its assessment, the Foundation describes as “deplorable” that these people “and other participants who will be listed in the coming days” end up on what it describes as a “list of infamy,” and states that “load[án] with the stigma of having participated with political motivations in repressive acts punishable as intimidation, threats and insults.”
The statement adds that, if “a new life” comes to Cuba, the project aspires to function as a “reliable source of evidence to deliver the inevitable justice,” and concludes with a call: “There is still time to mitigate their responsibility by renouncing participation in events that they might later regret.”
