The journalist Vladimir Turró, a contributor to CubaNet, on Thursday denounced the aggression he suffered in the middle of the street at the hands of State Security agents. “Three henchmen of the Castro dictatorship hit me in the eye,” wrote the reporter in their social networks. “They told me: ‘This is a preview of what can happen to you if you go out on November 15 to be doing the filthy journalism that you do.’
Summons, threats and intimidation of activists, opponents and independent journalists continue to be the constant, with 10 days remaining until the Civic March for Change, convened by the Archipelago platform.
Turró was taken by surprise this Thursday morning when he was near his home, located in Párraga, in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo. About this attack, the reporter María Matienzo Puerto warned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: “There is only one step between this and their starting to assassinate us.”
The attack on Turró occurred on the same day that the Cuban Ministry of Justice reiterated the illicit character of the march of 15N with the argument that “it is not carried out in harmony with the constitutional principles and presuppositions”, and follows the line of intimidating any attempt at peaceful demonstration. On October the authorities had asserted that “crimes of disobedience, illegal demonstrations, instigation to commit a crime” would be punished.
Regarding this attack, the reporter María Matienzo Puerto warned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: “Between this and the fact that they begin to assassinate us there is only one step.”
Last August, Turró was cited by State Security agents to the Sixth Unit of the Marianao Police, where two officers who identified themselves as Michel and Dominic tried to intimidate the journalist by starting “a judicial process.”
Attempts by the political police to scare the reporter included threats of “fatal consequences” and of being “severely punished” if he did not leave his job, which they consider “illegal” and “paid for by a foreign government.”
In his social networks, Turró has expressed his support for journalists Esteban Rodríguez and Lázaro Yuri Valle, who remain unjustly imprisoned. Rodríguez is a collaborator of DNACuba and has been in prison since last April 30 for his participation in an act of solidarity with the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara on Obispo Street in Havana.
Yuri is accused of “contempt and enemy propaganda” for covering the launching of leaflets from Havana, he was arrested on June 15. Rodríguez and Yuri, Turró pointed out in his social networks, “suffer the weight of injustice from a regime that treats journalists as criminals.”
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