The Ministry of the Interior announced today the arrest on Saturday of ten Panamanian citizens accused of carrying out propaganda actions considered “contrary to the Cuban constitutional order” by creating signs “with subversive content.”
According to an official note from the Minint and released by the Presidency in Facebookthe detainees, residents of Panama, would have entered the country with the purpose of making signs with “subversive” content and leaving the territory once the order was completed.
According to preliminary investigations, those involved would have received instructions to carry out the actions during the early hours of Saturday in the Cuban capital and, upon their return to Panama, they would receive payments that would range between 1,000 and 1,500 dollars per person, according to their first statements.
The Ministry of the Interior indicated that, from the moment of their arrest, the citizens acknowledged their participation in the events, although no additional details were offered about the judicial process or possible links with other people or organizations.
The investigations continue, indicated the entity, which did not specify the exact place where the actions were carried out or the current legal status of the accused.
These acts are typified in article 124 of the Cuban Penal Code, said the Home Office. The law establishes sanctions of deprivation of liberty of three to eight years for anyone who engages in propaganda against the constitutional order.
In particular, it contemplates punishment for anyone who “incites against the social order, international solidarity or the socialist State recognized in the Constitution of the Republic, through oral or written propaganda or in any other form”, as well as for anyone who “makes, distributes or possesses propaganda of the aforementioned nature”.
The complaint occurs days after the island’s authorities reported a attempted armed infiltration on the island, when a vessel from the United States, a speedboat with Florida registration FL7726SH, was intercepted after an attack against a surface unit of the Border Guard Troops in the northeastern area of the El Pino channel, in Cayo Falcones, municipality of Corralillo.
The Florida boat that was involved in the incident in the island’s territorial waters, which left four dead, was carrying 14 assault and combat rifles, in addition to 12,846 bullets of different calibers.
Representatives of the Minint showed the weapons in a special program on the island’s television, in which they provided new details of the events of this Wednesday in which ten Cubans residing in the United States participated, some also with American nationality, and five members of the Cuban Border Guard Troop.
“It is combat weapons,” said the Chief of Staff of the Directorate of Border Guard Troops, Ivey Daniel Carballo, who argued that the intention was to “carry out terrorist acts, promote public disorder” and “attack military units.”
The chief prosecutor of the Directorate of the Attorney General’s Office, Edward Roberts Campbell, indicated for his part that initial investigations are still being carried out to specify the types of crimes, but that the six crimes contemplated have a “high sanctioning framework” that ranges from 10 years “to perpetual deprivation of liberty and the death penalty.”
However, the Prosecutor’s Office has not yet formally filed charges and has not yet requested provisional detention for the six crew members of the speedboat who survived.
The event occurred at a time of special tension between the United States and Cuba, following Washington’s imposition of an oil siege on the island and demands for negotiation and change to Havana.
