A total of 14 people were arrested this Monday for demonstrating in favor of those arrested on July 11, who are being tried this week in the Municipal Court of Diez de Octubre, in Havana. many of them, warned the group Justicia 11J based on several witnesses, they were beaten, “including an old woman and an 18-year-old girl.”
According to the organization in a post of Facebook, the art historian Carolina Barrero, reported missing for several hours, was at the La Lisa police station, and Camila Rodríguez, coordinator of Justice 11J, was at the San Miguel del Padrón station, “under interrogation and threats to be charged with ‘public disorder'”. The activists were released on Tuesday afternoon.
Hours earlier, the rest of the detainees had been released, including Yudinela Castro, mother of the minor imprisoned by 11J Rowland Castillo Castro (with a 23-year-old prosecutor request), and the activist Daniela Rojo, who was also imprisoned for the demonstrations of July.
Many relatives of Duannis León Taboada, who is facing a 21-year prison sentence, were also arrested: Daniela Aracelis León, Melanie Lilian Rodríguez Taboada, Raisa Belkis Ortiz González, Lisandra de la Caridad González Ortiz, Lilian Yudisleidys González Ortiz, Nélida Oleida Ortiz González and one more close friend whose name was not disclosed.
The peaceful demonstration, in which the participants held hands in prayer and shouted slogans such as “freedom” or “they are heroes”, “was immediately answered with repression”
In addition, they were detained for a few hours at the El Cotorro Arian Cruz station. Tata Poet, Alexander Hall and Leonardo Romero.
The peaceful demonstration, which took place in the Juan Delgado park and in which the participants held hands in prayer and shouted slogans such as “freedom” or “they are heroes,” “was immediately answered with repression,” says Justicia 11J.
The platform claims to have received testimonies that the accused, “moved by the support, joined the protest by hitting the floor of the truck in which they were being transported back to prison and shouting ‘freedom'”.
There are 33 protesters accused of “sedition” for protesting on 11J at the corner of Toyo, the place that gave the most iconic image of that day, an overturned police patrol and a young man with a Cuban flag on it.
Included in that group are six under 18 yearsfor which the Prosecutor’s Office requests sentences of between 13 and 23 years in prison: Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro, Kendry Miranda Cárdenas, Brandon David Becerra Curbelo, Nayn Luis Marcos Molinet, Lázaro Noel Urgelles Fajardo and Giuseppe Belaunzaran Guada.
Far from heeding the calls from civil organizations about the violation of the rights of these minors under 18, the authorities continue to emphasize that the legal age of majority in Cuba is 16, and they mention cases of youth protests in the UK or the USwithout alluding to the fact that in no case, in those countries, have minors been asked for long prison sentences for throwing stones.
Without mentioning these trials either, but in a clear allusion to the discontent of young Cubans, Miguel Díaz-Canel said this Monday, at the first Council of Ministers of the year, that they will launch “a program of care for children and youth, where a more cultured, elevated, comprehensive response is demanded from all the institutions involved in the education and training of the new generations”.
The president also highlighted the role of the Communist Party of Cuba “in the defense of the socialist homeland, in safeguarding order and citizen tranquility, and as the superior leading force of society and the State,” with two objectives: “unity and continuity”.
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