International Human Rights Organization Frontline Defenders calls attention to arbitrary arrests and judicial harassment in Cuba

Text below taken from Irish human rights NGO Frontline Defenders:

18 November 2015

Cuba: Ongoing arbitrary detention of human rights defender Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco amidst arbitrary arrests and judicial harassment of peaceful demonstrators

Mr Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco has been arbitrarily detained since 25 October 2015 and is now facing charges of public disorder linked to his participation in peaceful demonstrations in Cuba. Human rights defenders Geovanys Izaguirre Hernandez and Laudelino Rodriguez Mendoza are also currently under detention following their arbitrary arrest on 5 November 2015 and a summary trial on 6 November 2015 in which they were sentenced to 6 months imprisonment.

Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco

This is an example of several cases of arbitrary arrests and judicial harassment against defenders in Cuba in the past months. Amongst them, the case of human rights defenders Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez” and Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera, both of whom were arrested on 11 November 2015 and released the following day.

Geovanys Izaguirre and Laudelino Rodriguez

Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco, Geovanys Izaguirre Hernandez, Laudelino Rodriguez Mendoza and Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" are members of Frente de Acción Cívica “Orlando Zapata Tamayo” (Civic Action Front “Orlando Zapata Tamayo” - FACOZT). FACOZT is an organisation that fights for the release of political prisoners in Cuba and reports human rights abuses committed by police forces against peaceful demonstrators in the country. Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera is the president of Movimiento por los Derechos Civiles Rosa Parks (Rosa Parks Civil Rights Movement), which is a feminist movement fighting to end the repression against human rights defenders and for the release of political prisoners. 

Human rights defender Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco has been detained since 25 October 2015 when he was arrested while on his way to participate in the demonstration “Todas Marchamos” (We all March), organised by the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) movement. He is being detained at the Fifth Unit of the Municipality Playa (Quinta Unidad del Municipio Playa), in Havana. The human rights defender is facing charges of public disorder linked to his participation in a demonstration at the premises of the Attorney General's office on 22 October 2015 demanding that all human rights defenders detained during the Pope's visit to Cuba should be released.

Human rights defenders Geovanys Izaguirre Hernandez and Laudelino Rodriguez Mendoza were arrested on 5 November 2015 and taken to the police station in the city of Palma Soriano. In the morning of 6 November 2015 both human rights defenders were subjected to a summary judgement and sentenced to six months imprisonment. They were both convicted of failing to pay a fine of $15,000.00 (Cuban pesos) for allegedly making anti-government graffiti in the city of Palma Soriano. The graffitti read "Queremos Cambios" (We want change), "No más hambre" (No more hunger), "No más desempleo" (no more unemployment).

On 11 November 2015, at approximately 7am, members of the regime’s special brigade broke into the home of Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez” in Camaguey and arrested him along with his wife and fellow human rights defender Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera. The arrests happened one day after Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez” launched the campaign “No, no and no” (“No, no y no”) asking the government to free Messrs Geovanys Izaguirre Hernandez and Laudelino Rodriguez Mendoza. Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez” and Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera were released the following day, but their home was seized by the police and their computer was taken along with some documents.

Front Line Defenders has received recurrent reports on arbitrary detentions conducted against human rights defenders in Cuba. The human rights organisation Information Centre “Let's Talk” Press (Centro de Información Hablemos Press - CIHPRESS) has recently issued a document reporting 1021 arbitrary and politically motivated arrests in Cuba in the month of October 2015 alone. The alarming number of arbitrary detentions in Cuba shows that human rights defenders who speak out against the regime continue to be targets of systematic repression. In this context, one of the most vulnerable group of human rights defenders are the women from Damas de Blanco since they are frequently subject to harassment during their weekly protests in Havana and other Cuban cities. This group of women has seen an increased pattern of arbitrary detention against them, where the government detain them for a few hours and re-arrest them the following week.

Front Line Defenders is gravely concerned at the arbitrary arrests and detentions of human rights defenders in Cuba, intended to silence all dissenting voices. Further concern is expressed at the continuous acts of violence and human rights violations committed against those who fight for the implementation of human rights in the country.

Front Line Defenders urges the authorities in Cuba to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco, and drop all charges against him, as Front Line Defenders believes that he is being held solely as a result of his legitimate and peaceful work in the defence of human rights;
2. Immediately and unconditionally quash the sentence of Geovanys Izaguirre Hernandez and Laudelino Rodriguez Mendoza and ensure their release from detention, as Front Line Defenders believes that their summary trial did not allow them to exercise their right to defence and that they have been sentenced solely as a result of their legitimate and peaceful human rights work as radio journalists; 
3. Take all necessary measures to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity and security of Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco, Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez”, Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera, Geovanys Izaguirre Hernandez and Laudelino Rodriguez Mendoza;
4. Return the computer of Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez” and Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera confiscated during the raid, as they are manifestly not linked to any criminal activity;

5. Take all necessary measures to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity and security of members of Damas de Blanco and their right to carry out peaceful demonstrations without fear of reprisals; 
6. Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in Cuba are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions.
    

En castellano.

Human Rights, The Cuban Exodus and U.S. Policy

Breaking through the regime sanctioned narrative

Members of the Ladies in White and activists in Havana on 11/1/15

The human rights situation in Cuba continues to deteriorate. This past weekend over 150 nonviolent activists were arrested for trying to exercise their rights. Cuban human rights defenders reported 1,093 arbitrary detentions in the month of October 2015. There are also new cases of activists, arbitrarily detained and held for months in prison. They have been threatened with political show trials. The regime in Cuba remains a totalitarian, communist dictatorship that visits violence upon nonviolent dissidents.

Jailed since September 20, 2015 for addressing Pope Francis

 UNPACU members, Zaqueo Baez Guerrero, Ismael Bonet Rene and Lady in White Maria Josefa Acón Sardiñas, were arbitrarily detained on September 20, 2015 for wanting Pope Francis, the foreign press, and through this, the world, to know that in Cuba there are political prisoners who survive in subhuman conditions, that the dictatorship in the island tramples the rights and fundamental freedoms of human beings, and that the repressive forces beat nonviolent women and men who want a fair, democratic and prosperous Cuba. The dictatorship in Cuba has also extra-judicially executed nonviolent opposition activists.

There continue to be new prisoners of conscience locked up in Cuba. On October 22, 2015 twenty activists nonviolently protested in Havana before the prosecutor's office demanding the release of Zaqueo Baez, Ismael Bonet and Maria Josefa. Now Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco and Wilberto Parada Milán have been taken and jailed.

Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco detained after 10/22/15 protest

Artists remain jailed in Cuba for their words. On January 28, 2015, the rapper Maikel Castillo Pérez  stage name, El Dkano - Maikel Oksobo, was sentenced to a year in prison in Havana. He was targeted for having used music to express his dissenting political opinions. El Dkano was sentenced under a charge known as ‘peligrosidad predelictiva’ (‘dangerousness that is likely leading to a crime’), which is used to imprison dissidents for long terms. The 31-year-old’s lyrics are known for criticizing the Castro regime. He once described his style as that of someone who “doesn’t make concessions with a system full of liars.”

Beyond the strictly political there is also the use of Cuban workers and professionals in slave like conditions to enrich the Castro regime to the tune of billions of dollars.

Tony Díaz Sánchez is a Cuban opposition leader who become a prisoner of conscience in March of 2003 and spent the next seven plus years unjustly imprisoned in Cuba. He is not allowed to return to Cuba by the Castro regime. Over Facebook he made the following contribution to the debate on the Cuban Adjustment Act:

"There is an increasing exodus from Cuba, an exodus whose cause is neither the existence nor the possible elimination of the Cuban Adjustment Act. An exodus that is a consequence of the lack of rights and freedoms suffered by the Cuban people. For many, it is easier to ask for the removal of the Cuban Adjustment Act than to ask for the end of the repressive police state, and the misery established by tyranny, for many it is more logical to visit than to condemn them. It makes more sense to negotiate than demand, more logical be their partner than to be their adversary. For that reason, by mere hypocrisy and petty interests that they blame the Adjustment Act for the increase in the arrival of Cubans. They may eliminate the law and put an end to this most comprehensive and humane act of solidarity, of the great American nation. What they will not do is to try to end the regime that made necessary the Act and therefore Cubans will continue leaving and fleeing Cuba to the Diaspora . Yes to the Cuban Adjustment Act."

Unfortunately, all indications are that the Obama Administration's Cuba policy of normalizing relations with an abnormal regime is entrenching the worse elements of the dictatorship.

For example, US Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas visited Cuba and held talks on October 28, 2015 with the Castro dictatorship’s recently named Interior Minister, Major General Carlos Fernandez Gondin, who has a record as a particularly brutal regime official with the nickname "Fairy Godmother" because "he loves to make numbers out of names and turn people into a national security issue."

The exodus of Cubans will continue because they are fleeing from a repressive and exploitative dictatorship. The Obama administration's Cuba policy like Clinton's and Carter's in the past, embracing the dictatorship at the expense of Cubans and their human rights, is what drives Cubans to despair and flee the island because they perceive that it will extend the life of the dictatorship.