MIAMI, United States. – The Cuban activist Juan Luis Bravo Rodríguez was the victim of a violent attack allegedly perpetrated by agents of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) and a civilian, in the middle of a public street in Guantanamo the night of December 31, according to reported this Wednesday the Cubalex Legal Information Center.
Bravo Rodríguez told Cubalex that, around midnight, “he was returning home when he was intercepted by three individuals on 3 Sur Street, between Máximo Gómez and Luz y Caballero.” Two of them were wearing uniforms, which identified them as PNR agents, while the third was dressed in civilian clothes. The civilian “hit him violently in the face, apparently with a tonfa,” while they shouted “brazen.” His mobile phone was destroyed after the attack.
A few minutes later, the activist managed to communicate with Cubalex through a video call. “Our team was able to confirm that his face was bloody,” the organization reported. It was also learned that a police patrol later arrived with two officers, who “did not give him help or ask him what had happened, they simply watched him and left laughing.”
4/ Almost immediately after the attack, Juan Luis contacted Cubalex, and through a video call our team was able to confirm that his face was bloody. pic.twitter.com/ubicNNZ60B
— Cubalex (@CubalexDDHH) January 2, 2025
Bravo Rodríguez then went to a nearby police station, where they refused to treat him. He tried to file a complaint, but an officer ordered him to leave, stating that “they didn’t care.” That same morning he remained under surveillance, according to the activist.
Due to the attack, he went to the Guantánamo Provincial Hospital, where a maxillofacial specialist diagnosed him with a nasal fracture and indicated medical follow-up. Despite this, when he tried to formalize the complaint on the 1st. January in the Provincial Unit of the PNR, an officer “denied him this right and ordered him to leave.”
The incident is not the first that Bravo Rodríguez has faced. In 2012, State Security officer Ridel Mesclin, along with two plainclothes agents, broke his jaw and left him in a ditch after beating and kicking him.
Cubalex considers that “these attacks are not isolated events,” but rather part of “a repressive strategy by State Security that uses physical violence to intimidate and silence activists and peaceful opponents.” Likewise, he warned about “state thuggery,” a pattern of repression documented in his reports that seeks to coerce human rights defenders.
