Repression of Cubanet journalists on election day

Mexico City, Mexico.-Several journalists and collaborators of CubaNet They have reported siege and surveillance today, due to the electoral process that is taking place in the country. State Security has deployed part of its repressive apparatus to prevent media reporters from leaving their homes and documenting how the process is taking place.

Journalist Enrique Díaz, a resident of Havana, denounced that yesterday, March 25, two people on a motorcycle arrived at the headquarters of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution in his neighborhood with the order that they keep an eye on him. Indeed, today a repressor who has attacked him before woke up very close to the door of his house.

“Years ago he assaulted me, then he attacked my house with sticks and stones and broke a window with a machete. It all culminated in a disgusting act of repudiation,” Díaz details.

Also in Havana, CubaNet contributor Ángel Cuza reported that they located a police patrol in front of his house. This shows how the country invests resources in repression in the midst of an acute crisis that affects all areas.

In the case of Osniel Carmonatwo agents contacted him directly to warn him that he would be jailed if he left his home for the entire weekend.

The practices within the country are similar. In Holguín, a repressor who identifies himself as Enrique approached the reporter’s wife on the street and told her that he should not leave her house during the electoral process.

On the other hand, in the far eastern part of the country, Rolando R. Lobaina, a member of the Palenque Visión channel and collaborator of our outlet, denounced that the outlet’s reporters are under surveillance and cannot leave their homes.

The NGO Cubalex is regularly publishing and updating a list of the repressive actions that he has been able to detect around these legislative elections on the island. Below we share the list.

• In the Playa de La Habana municipality, mobile data internet service to independent journalist Yunia Figueredo is cut off.
• In Camaguey, the opposition members Marisol Peña Cobas and José Luis Acosta were besieged by the police and State Security to prevent them from attending mass.
• In Plaza de la Revolución, Havana, the activist Zelandia Pérez Abreu and the independent journalist Juan Manuel Moreno were besieged in their home.
• In Camajuaní, Villa Clara, a State Security officer “Maikel” intercepts the activist Librado Linares on the street, informs him that he has been placed in house confinement and that a summons to court will arrive later.
• In Camaguey, the mobile data internet connection to the independent journalist Inalkis Rodríguez Lora is cut off.
• In Habana del Este, activist María Elena Mir is prevented from participating in electoral observation.
• In Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba, the activist Elsa Litsy Isaac was detained and beaten when she tried to participate as an electoral observer in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba. She (she was already released).
• In Perico, Matanzas, the Lady in White Sonia Álvarez Campillo was arrested at 8 in the morning and released at 12 noon when she was going to the church to ask for her daughter and her husband’s release. In addition, Álvarez Campillo was fined.
• In San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque, a State Security agent watches and persecutes Liset Fonseca Rosales while she walks on the public highway, like every Sunday, to demand the release of her son, the political prisoner of 11J Roberto Pérez Fonseca .
• In Camaguey, the activists Marisol Peña and José Luis Acosta have police surveillance outside their house in Camagüey to prevent them from attending church.
• The Ladies in White Caridad Burunate and Maritza Acosta were detained in Colón, Matanzas, to prevent them from attending mass. Burunate was detained at the bus terminal from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm and Perdomo was detained at the Military Committee from 10:00 am to noon.
• Internet connection to José Luis Acosta and Marisol Peña Cobas, who are also under siege, are cut off.
• Bárbara Farrat Guillén and Orlando Rodríguez Cutiño, activists and parents of 9/11 protester Jonathan Torres Farrat, besieged in their home.
• Activist Juan Luis Bravo Rodríguez denounced that members of the Union for Cuba Libre Party and the Emilia Project, as well as members of the national executive, have been under police surveillance since yesterday.
• Police chase Liset Fonseca, mother of 9/11 political prisoner Roberto Pérez Fonseca, during her walk dressed in black demanding the release of political prisoners.
• Ángel Cuza Alfonso, Cubanet contributor, besieged. They report police surveillance in front of his home.
• Ismaray Martínez Ávila, stepdaughter of 11J political prisoner Iván Colón Suárez, denounces internet cut on her telephone line.
• Diego Jesús Fernández, a young man who demonstrated on July 11, 2022, denounces cuts in the mobile data service.
• Mobile data internet service is cut off for journalists from La Hora de Cuba Henry Constantín, Neife Rigau and Iris Mariño.
• People dressed as civilians watch the house of the journalist Iris Mariño.
• WIlber Aguilar, father of 9/11 political prisoner Walnier Luis Aguilar Rivera, denounces that he has police surveillance outside his house.
• Berta Soler and Ángel Moya arrested when they tried to go out to the streets to ask for the release of political prisoners as they do every Sunday
• Internet connection to José Luis Acosta and Marisol Peña Cobas, who are also under siege, are cut off.
• The activist Diasniurka Salcedo denounces that she has police surveillance. Even so, she was able to go out to visit some polling stations in the area. After she filmed the empty polling stations, they cut her internet service through mobile data and began to call her insistently from a private number.
• Miryorly García’s mobile data internet service is cut off for several hours.
• They prevent Manuel Cuesta Morúa and María Mercedes Benítez from leaving the house to carry out electoral observation.
• The activists Ada Iris Miranda Leyva, Ana Iris Miranda Leyva and Fidel Batista Leyva denounce the surveillance operation they have in the surroundings of the AZCUBA shelter, Holguín, where they are located. Also throughout the day they have had internet cuts for mobile data.
• Surveilled Yunia Figueredo’s home by a State Security officer.

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