#JusticeForHanselErnesto and #FreeKende: Do Black Lives Matter in Cuba for the International Community?

 Official version: Shot in the back while running away from the police and throwing rocks.

Hansel E. Hernández shot in the back by police in Cuba on June 24, 2020

This Tuesday non-violent demonstrations in Cuba have been called for through social networks to ask for justice and to protest the death of the young black Cuban Hansel E. Hernández. On June 24, 2020 in Havana, Cuba Hansel was shot in the back and killed by the police while allegedly trying to flee.  One protest gathering site has been identified as the movie theater Yara in Havana, Cuba.

It took three days for the authorities to report the killing, despite repeated requests for clarity on what had happened.

Hours later, the authorities released a statement indicating that the 27-year-old had been caught by a National Revolutionary Police patrol when, according to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior (MININT), "he was stealing pieces and accessories from a bus stop", then fleeing. 

During the chase "on the run for almost two kilometers, over uneven terrain", the young man, to avoid being arrested, "attacked one of the policemen throwing several stones, one of which hit the policeman in the crotch, another in the side of the torso and a third dislocated his shoulder and threw him to the floor," indicates the statement posted on social networks on June 27th.

In response to Hansel Hernández's throwing stones, “the soldier fired two warning shots. Immediately afterwards and due to the danger to his life due to the magnitude of the aggression, the policeman riposted from the ground, firing a shot with his regulation weapon that impacts the individual and causes him to die," continues the official version.

Family held open casket service for Hansel.

Hernández's case has caused controversy in the interior of Cuba, where it has been compared with the death of George Floyd, the  Black American who died last May in Minneapolis (United States) during his arrest for a suffocation maneuver made by a white police officer.  

His death sparked protests and riots across the United States, protests that spread to other major cities around the world. He also encouraged in other countries (France, Mexico) to unearth similar cases of suspected deaths at the hands of the police.

On June 18, 2020 The Progressive published an article titled "Foreign Correspondent: Police Lessons From Cuba" by Reese Erlich that claims "Contrary to the image of brutal and repressive communists, police in Cuba offer an instructive example for activists in the United States."

If the United States adopted the Cuban approach recommended by  Mr. Erlich any person recording a police officer, then sharing that image on a digital platform would be violating their right to privacy, and if what they record the police officer doing, whether his or her actions were right or wrong, they would be fined and if they did not pay the fine would be subject to prison.

A law, patterned after Cuba's, would require those who record police on or off the job to get the approval of the police officer recorded before sharing the video with any digital platforms. Thankfully, the First Amendment prohibits such restrictions in the United States, and also runs afoul of international human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Cuba is a signatory, even though the document is censored in the island.

El Kende de Cayo Hueso

Now we have learned that 17 year old social influencer El Kende de Cayo Hueso was first fined then jailed for recording video from the rooftop of his home of a long line in the street. He is being held with adult criminals. Four days have passed since his arrest.

Es El Kende de Cayo Hueso y sus amigos, niños presos en #Cuba por grabar un vídeo en la azotea de su casa, los llevan a una cárcel con delincuentes comunes.
Cayo Hueso Mañana todos a la calle a las 11 de la mañana en el Yara y en toda Cuba. Basta de abuso policial. #freekende pic.twitter.com/XyGGTCCACC

— Angel Rivas (@AngelRCuba) June 30, 2020

According to a January 13, 2020 report in The New York Times a former high-ranking judge in Cuba provided documents which "showed that approximately 92 percent of those accused in the more than 32,000 cases that go to trial in Cuba every year are found guilty. Nearly 4,000 people every year are accused of being “antisocial” or “dangerous,” terms the Cuban government uses to jail people who pose a risk to the status quo, without having committed a crime." Furthermore, the article says that "records show that Cuba’s prison system holds more than 90,000 prisoners. The Cuban government has only publicly released the figure once, in 2012, when it claimed that 57,000 people were jailed."

Based on the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research, according to the January 13, 2020 article by EuropaPress, Cuba today has the largest per capita prison population in the world.

Hansel E. Hernández was just 27 years old when he was killed. 

Hansel was shot and killed for throwing rocks.  On Friday, June 5, 2020 news broke that a police station had been assaulted and two policemen killed and a third seriously injured allegedly by Yusniel Tirado Aldama an assailant that had a grievance with the police over poor treatment when making a complaint and harassment. The shooter was caught alive, unlike Hansel, the suspect was white.

Yusniel Tirado Aldama (Photo: Courtesy)

Today at 11:00am on June 30, 2020 protests have been called in a country where the freedom to assembly and to speak is outlawed. Please monitor along with us what is happening via the hashtag:
#JusticiaParaHanselErnesto and #FreeKende.

Media sources for report below: ABC, MartiNoticias, 14ymedio and Diario de Cuba

#MiamiProtests Why was a Sandinista Flag on display at a protest for George Floyd?

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside agitator' idea." - Martin Luther King Jr. , Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

Mothers mourn their murdered children in Nicaragua. Victims of the Sandinistas

I have no doubt that white supremacists and Neo-Nazis are exploiting the civil unrest in the United States, targeting the police who they hate, and making a bad situation worse, but they are not the only ones. Antifa and other hard Left elements are also doing the same introducing symbols and rhetoric that take away from the cause of justice for George Floyd.

In the Miami Protest on May 30, 2020 demanding justice for George Floyd a picture was taken of two individuals holding up the black and red flag of the "National Sandinista Liberation Front" (FSLN) in the midst of the protest, and it was posted on Twitter by a self-described militant of the Sandinista cause.

If we believe, as Reverend King did, that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" then these individuals need to be called out for carrying a banner, representing Daniel Ortega, a dictator who uses his security forces to murder, torture and rape opponents in Nicaragua to maintain power. Ortega has a lot more in common with Derek Chauvin, and has been placing his knee on the necks of Nicaraguans collectively for years jailing and killing many.

Mother demands justice for her murdered son on May 30, 2018 in Nicaragua

Nicaraguan mothers have been killed by Daniel Ortega's repressive forces for demanding justice for their murdered children. How can people of good will associate and promote such a regime? Two years ago on Mother's Day in Nicaragua, that was celebrated on May 30, 2018, a peaceful protest march was carried out in solidarity and mourning with mothers whose children had been killed in previous weeks by the Sandinistas. The mothers carried photos of their murdered children. During the march Ortega's henchman killed 16 more Nicaraguans and nearly another 200 were injured.

Young man shot by Ortega's repressors taken to hospital. 5/30/18. (AP /Esteban Felix)

According to a 2018 United Nations report, many of those arrested "were subjected to extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, rape with rifles, and torture with Taser guns, barbed wire, tubes and attempted strangulation." Death squads are operating in Nicaragua today.

Why would advocates for justice for George Floyd associate with people carrying such a loathsome symbol?

Should they not show solidarity for the victims of Daniel Ortega and not march together with his supporters? 

What would George Floyd do?

Paula Hernandez, mother of Michael Gonzalez (age 24) shot to death by FSLN on May 30, 2018

American Martyr 2020: Justice For George Floyd

“If this age is to survive, it must follow the way of love and nonviolence that [Gandhi] so nobly illustrated in his life.” - Martin Luther King Jr., All India Radio ,1959
 

George Floyd

George Floyd, "Big Floyd", spent his life serving others and evangelizing in one of the most difficult neighborhoods in Houston, TX.  He was known as a person of peace. Floyd moved to Minnesota in 2018 and two years later was killed.

A local shop keeper called police over a $20 counterfeit bill, and the police suspected that Floyd had passed the bill.

Videos emerged demonstrating that he had been detained by the police, ended up on the ground with three police officers pinning him down, and one officer standing by and looking around. One of  the officers pinning him down placed and kept a knee on his throat.  Floyd told the police who were pinning him down: "Please I can't breathe. My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. They're going to kill me." Minutes continue to pass and, he died. 

George Floyd holding up a bible with friends in Texas.

These are times when those engaged in crimes have names that seem to point to their guilt. Last week a women with the last name of a fictional serial killer (Ripley) murdered her autistic son, but tried to cover it up blaming it on two non-existent black men who she claimed had ambushed her and had kidnapped her son.

Now the police officer charged with his murder, Derek Chauvin, who placed the knee on George Floyd's neck and disregarded his pleas to be able to breath has a last name (Chauvin) that is linked to the origin of the word chauvinism in the 19th  century, to Nicolas Chauvin, that signifies prejudice and hostility to outsiders.

In the discussions of lethal force used by the police there is an understandable focus on black men, because according to a 2019 study one in 1,000 can expect to be killed by the police, and they are most in danger during their life time. However, one in 2,000 men of all racial groupings, including the majority white population, can expect to be killed by the police during their life time. Reforms can take place that can reduce these numbers and place them in line with other Western countries. For example, neighboring Canada has a rate of police killing civilians of 9.7 per 10 million that is one third that of the United States that has a rate of 28.4 per 10 million.

We can do better.

These are strange, terrible days with COVID-19 claiming over 360,00 lives worldwide, with over a 100,000 fellow countrymen dead, racial tensions rising in the midst of chronic anxiety, and fear that we are just at the end of the beginning, with tough times lying ahead with a pandemic and economic collapse.

Protests have exploded into riots, and innocents are also impacted, and it is ironic and tragic because Floyd lived his life as a peacemaker in his community.

The death of George Floyd for one rare moment united a divided America in condemnation for this unjust killing, and thanks to the video footage led to the firing of the four officers involved, and the charging of one of them, Chauvin with murder and manslaughter. The others need to be held to account.

These are times when many are suffering through no fault of their own. But let us remember the words of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., "unearned suffering is redemptive."

The pursuit of justice and the reduction of impunity is not an easy journey, but it is both a needed and a worthy undertaking that requires great discernment and wisdom that often times necessitates hard earned experiences with injustice.