Havana/A group of Cuban activists formally presented this Wednesday to the National Assembly in Havana a citizen petition to promote an amnesty law, with the aim of freeing the almost 1,200 political prisoners in the country. The documents, delivered by Yenisey Mercedes Taboada Ortiz – mother of the political prisoner Duannis León Taboada–, Jenny Pantoja and Miryorly García Prieto, include a technical-legal writing and a citizen petition letter that gathers, so far, 1,535 verified signatures.
To substantiate its claim, the campaign recalls that Law 131 of 2019 “grants deputies the power to propose bills,” and citizens the right to present petitions. This is an initiative similar to the one promoted by the opposition Oswaldo Payá, who in 1998 presented his Varela Project based on article 88 of the then current Constitution, which allowed Cubans to present laws if a minimum of citizen signatures were gathered.
The current law allows Cuban citizens to request the drafting of a law to the National Assembly; a minimum of 10,000 verified signatures are required, with their corresponding identity number. Given this, the campaign For an Amnesty Now! has insisted that “this petition can be signed by every Cuban citizen, whether or not they reside in the country, as we all have the ethical and moral right to demand the freedom of our compatriots.”
59% of the total signatories of this first cut declare that they maintain their permanent residence in Cuba
Until February 2, 2,514 signatures had been collected, although only 1,535 signatories provided their complete data or were completed and verified.
In a statement, the organization indicates that, approximately, 59% of the total signatories of this first cut declare that they maintain their permanent residence in Cuba, and highlights that 6% of those who sign are relatives of political prisoners.
For an Amnesty Now! reported that the petition remains open to continue collecting signatures, which, “after verifying the completeness and credibility of the data, will be gradually delivered to the Assembly.” For this, link a document so that citizens can sign and comply with the requirement.
“The freedom of our political prisoners, in the midst of the humanitarian crisis that the country is experiencing, is an urgent issue that today challenges the responsibility, sense of justice and humanism of each Cuban, and is, likewise, a point that has been articulated to a very broad spectrum of opinions,” indicates the statement after the delivery of the documentation.
“This is not only a request protected by law and the exercise of a right, but a symbolic and civic action that allows expressing the will of citizens to accompany the pain of hundreds of families and prevent that wound from remaining open, for not accepting dissent, in the soul of the Cuban nation,” he adds.
In Cuba “only one Amnesty Law has been drafted in 1955, promulgated by the dictator Fulgencio Batista for the assailants of the Moncada barracks”
On the website that collects the signaturesthe activists remember that the request is due “to the urgent need for justice and the humanitarian importance of it being attended to at this time when it will be five years since the unjust imprisonment of many Cubans after the peaceful demonstrations of the July 11 and 12, 2021which only left one protester as deceased, who was shot in the back by a police officer and has not received justice.”
“From then to date – the text elaborates – the situation of political prisoners in Cuba has continued to worsen. The arrests and sentences of innocent Cubans who have only persisted in exercising the right to free thought, free expression and other unavoidable human rights such as the right of association and demonstration, endorsed by our Magna Carta, have prevailed.
In the document they recall that in Cuba “only one Amnesty Law has been drafted in 1955, promulgated by the dictator Fulgencio Batista for the assailants of the Moncada barracks, using humanitarian criteria, which was possible thanks to the popular support of Cuban citizens and the management carried out by the relatives of the political prisoners and other civil society organizations.”
Given this, they point out that “it is at least contradictory from a historical, political and human point of view, that in a project founded and still directed by the beneficiaries and continuers of that popular support and that law, today the popular will and the arguments that the relatives of our current prisoners have to offer to the Assembly and the government of this country are ignored, with the intention of demanding a gesture of justice and humanism.”
