The Prosecutor’s Office of Bayamo, in the province of Granma, left the last trial seen for sentencing last Friday to July 11 protesters which has been reported. For a group of 17 people, accused of attack, resistance, public disorder, contempt and damages for alleged “vandalism” against soldiers and vehicles of the Ministry of the Interior, it requests up to 16 years in prisonreports Radio Television Martí.
Among those prosecuted is the activist Yoandris Gutiérrez Vargas, a member of the independent organization Impacto Juvenil Republicano, who is in the Manga de Bayamo prison and faces an 11-year sentence. Last October, the opponent spent a week on a hunger strike to denounce the mistreatment inside the prison and the “unjust” accusation against him.
According to the legal organization Cubalex, the activist is prohibited from family visits and the conjugal pavilion and is restricted from using the telephone. “He is under a more severe regimen, isolated in a cell,” they denounced in his list before the trial.
According to the legal organization Cubalex, the activist is prohibited from family visits and the conjugal pavilion and is restricted from using the telephone. “He is under a more severe regime, isolated in a cell”
Before the Las Mangas prison, and since he was arrested, two days after the July protests, he was in the jail of the Yara municipality, from where he was transferred on October 18.
The spokesman for the Republican Party of Cuba, Geiler Flores Fonseca, told Radio Televisión Martí that the July 11 demonstrators came out to express “everything that they had stored inside their hearts, and that was to demand freedom.”
In his opinion, the requests from the Prosecutor’s Office are “excessive” and he referred to Yoandris Gutiérrez as “a faithful defender of human rights and a faithful seeker of the truth,” said Flores.
The Bayamo Prosecutor’s Office accuses them of committing an attack, resistance, public disorder, contempt and damage; allegedly, they carried out “acts of vandalism” against soldiers and vehicles belonging to the Ministry of the Interior.
Flores Fonseca maintains that “several demonstrators” attacked the Ministry’s vehicle because there were personnel dressed in civilian clothes who began to attack the demonstrators. “They simply tried to defend themselves,” added the opponent.
Flores Fonseca maintains that “several protesters” attacked the Ministry’s vehicle because there were personnel dressed in civilian clothes who began to attack the protesters.
In addition to Yoandris Gutiérrez Vargas, the following were prosecuted in Bayamo: Abel Quevedo Miranda, Ariel Axel López Ramírez, Bryan Eladio Vega Véliz, Carlos Rafael Ramírez Quiñones, Emmanuel López Martínez, Javier Rafael Paneque Oliva, Jenry Osmar Sánchez Aparicio, Jorge Iván Díaz Puig, Juan Alberto Matos Masó, Levys González Piedra, Luis Arnaldo Leyva Pérez, Maikol Fabián Figueredo Carbonell, Rafael Cutiño Bazán, Ricardo Fernández Osorio, Roberto Sosa Cabrera and Yoel Consuegra Ávila.
As in previous cases, the trials have not been known by the official press and the majority of relatives of the defendants opt for silence, evidencing the pressure from the regime to silence their testimonies.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, the July 11 protests have given rise to criminal proceedings against some 790 people, with requests for up to 30 years in prison.
In recent days, the writer Maria Cristina Garrido Garrido and her sister were sentenced to 7 and 3 years in prison, after participating in the protests in the municipality of San José de Las Lajas, province of Mayabeque, and the young Reyna Yacnara Barreto Batista She entered prison, in Camagüey, to complete the four years of correctional work with internment to which she was sentenced for having demonstrated on July 11.
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