HAVANA, Cuba.- Five months after the trial, the Popular Municipal Court of Santiago de Cuba sentenced five protesters on July 11 (11J) 2021 to up to nine years in prison for the alleged crimes of “public disorder” , “disrespect”, “disobedience” and “attack”.
None of the defendants had a criminal record and only one, Idalberto Fonden Roma, 24, was released with a fine of 3,000 pesos. The other four sanctioned are: Joel Tor Caballero, 34 years old, and Frank Ernesto Mourlot Speck, 29 years old, sentenced to 5 years in prison; Ibrahim Ariel González Hodelin and Ronal Luis González Ramos, both 22 years old, sentenced to 9 years in prison. The accessory sanction of deprivation of civil rights was also established.
The court, made up of Rolando Aroche Pérez, Cristóbal Mut Mafrán and Héctor Alfredo Álvarez Ciria, refers through Judgment No. 87/2022, that the defendants participated in the 11J protests, shouted insults at the police authorities and the First Secretary of the PCC , Miguel Díaz-Canel, such as “Díaz-Canel Singao” and “Abajo Díaz-Canel”; two of them, according to the sentence, came to throw stones at the police.
“It is not a fair sentence,” González, wife of Joel Tor Caballero, told CubaNet Daily, “they have put things that he did not do as proven facts, such as broadcasting the demonstrations live. There you already realize the veracity of these alleged investigations and the total defenselessness of my husband.
Tor Caballero is currently in the maximum security Boniato Prison in Santiago de Cuba. There, according to his wife, the conditions are terrible, “he is full of bedbugs and mice.”
Background
To date, at least 30 9/11 protesters in Santiago de Cuba have been tried in summary or ordinary trials. In March of this year, eight demonstrators from the El Caney province, Santiago de Cuba -five of whom belong to the same family-, were sentenced to up to 12 years in prison. Two months later, another 16 of those who participated in the protests in Palma Soriano, in the same province, received similar sentences. Last week, Pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo, from the Monte de Sion Church, in the same town, was sentenced to seven years in prison for his attendance at the 11J protests.
The Justice 11J working group has documented the notification of 396 sentences throughout the country, through which 537 people have been tried, of which only four have been fully acquitted.
For its part, Prisoners Defenders currently registers 1,015 political prisoners in Cuba, who are “suffering judicial sentences, as well as provisions limiting their freedom by prosecutors without any judicial supervision, in flagrant violation of international law and the due process,” assured the NGO.
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