what to take to help people i cuba
In the wake of the July 11 street protests that rocked Cuba'south Communist regime, the Havana regime has moved to reassert control by arresting hundreds of their ain citizens, more than three dozen of whom are suspected of having been "forced disappearances"
Beginning the week after the demonstrations, Cubans who had been swept up past the authorities were judged in summary trials in groups of x or 12 at a fourth dimension, independent journalist Cynthia de la Cantera told The Mail. She explained that Cuban law allows for such swift disposition of cases involving purportedly minor crimes, where the penalisation is less than one twelvemonth in prison house.
"They are making what nosotros call 'exemplary' trials, with many people who are existence prosecuted without evidence," she said.
"Many defendants don't take lawyers, they [the authorities] don't allow their relatives in court or their relatives are not notified," Cantera added. "In some cases, the relatives were told the trial would be held at a certain identify and when they arrived, it turned out the trial was being held elsewhere, they arrived late and therefore couldn't enter. In short, there are many irregularities in this process."
According to Cantera, relatives of defendants who practice have access to legal representation are being told to go on quiet near their loved ones' cases and then that they may receive a lighter sentence. She notes that private legal practice is illegal on the island, leaving the accused to stand alone confronting a rigged organization.
"Many lawyers are recommending to the relatives non to divulge the cases on social networks, non to brand the case visible, not to talk to the contained press, not to talk to the foreign press," she said, adding that "some take even told them not to become through an appeal process because the penalty may be college."
"There is besides a lack of legal culture in Republic of cuba," she went on, "and correct now information technology puts many families in a very vulnerable situation."
In an endeavor to break the code of silence, Cantera and other independent journalists and activists are working to catalogue data about their arrested compatriots.
Every bit of late Tuesday, a Google document contained the names of 805 people who had been arrested or are otherwise unaccounted for in the aftermath of the demonstrations, the intensity of which Cantera described as unprecedented since the ascension of Fidel Castro to power in 1959. The listing has been slowly built out despite the best efforts of the Cuban government to limit the spread of information most their deportment.
"You accept to realize that all this is functionally illegal and blocked by the Cuban government, so they're trying to hack it as best they can while some amongst them are getting detained, disappeared, etc. and the cyberspace is shutting off all the time," said author Antonio Garcia Martinez, who shared the list with The Post. "And then, it'south a scramble on their side."
The document, which is entitled "List of detainees and disappeared Cuba July 2021," includes each person's name, the place they were last seen, the time and date of their detention if known, the latest report on their status and their age if known. Only a select few tin update the certificate, in order to preclude pro-regime propagandists from deleting the data or spreading falsehoods.
The youngest person on the list is 14-year-old Christopher Lleonart Santana of Havana. At concluding report, he was arrested July 17 at iii a.m., accused of throwing stones and held in a detention center for minors.
"His mother reports that he has been browbeaten," the document reads.
Another name on the list is xv-yr-old Glenda de la Caridad Marrero Cartaya, described every bit a computer student accused of "inciting riots" in the boondocks of Jovellanos, about 100 miles east of Havana. She faces upward to threescore days in prison.
Nearly two dozen people on the listing take already been tried and sentenced to between eight and 12 months in prison. Ane of them is 17-twelvemonth-quondam Katherine Martin, who was arrested along with her female parent and her sister Miriam. The certificate records that Katherine was sentenced to a yr in prison house after a summary trial on July 20 and was "badly beaten" while in jail.
"Katty is a very brave girl," the document records the testimony of a swain detainee. "We called her 'The Colombian' because she imitates the Colombian accent to perfection and fabricated us express mirth a lot. Katty is only 17 and has had to live in prison house because she doesn't hold, considering she doesn't conform."
Katherine's mother, Myra Taquechel, has been sentenced to eight months in prison while sister Miriam has been released on bond.
Another name on the list, 25-yr-quondam photographer erstwhile Angelo Troya, was given a year in prison for filming the protests, according to independent journalist Claudia Padrón Cueto.
"Angelo went out to movie the protests, to document them. Only that," Cueto tweeted July 21. "They did not forgive him for filming … They did not forgive him for filming the demonstrations and repression".
The oldest person on the list is 68-year-quondam Felix Navarro Rodriguez, who was reportedly arrested and charged with public disorder while inquiring about other detainees the day after the protests in the city of Matanzas, 55 miles due east of Havana.
"The list is based on reports from family members and friends," Cantera explained. "They're either public reports that are posted on social networks or from people who contact us through our internal channels and ask u.s. to please add together their family member to the listing, who believe that it is necessary for them to be there to make that case visible, so we do it."
Once a person is reported detained, Cantera says, a grouping of women is tasked with verifying they actually have lost their freedom.
"They contact other family members, other friends, they cheque Facebook, they check social media pages to confirm the concluding fourth dimension they posted, what has been known almost that person, what has been published about that person, they contact other family members and friends to verify in fact that the information reported is real," she said. "This process is quite slow compared to the number of reports that come in, because there are other relatives who do non desire to talk, relatives who are afraid."
Cantera adds that regular internet outages, which she calls "a regime tool for censorship", as well make the verification process tedious going, just "nosotros hope at some point to become to verify all of them."
Of the 805 detainees, 373 are confirmed every bit beingness detained at a known location. A further 248 are listed every bit "En excarcelación" or released, though activists say that number includes people who are under firm arrest.
A farther 173 people described every bit being "en proceso de verificación," significant their current whereabouts are unknown. The vast bulk in this category have been reported detained in connection with the protests, while some are described as having been caught upwards in "criminal investigations."
Ominously, 39 people included on the list are confirmed or suspected of being "desapariciónes forzadas" — forced disappearances.
"The people who are in enforced disappearance are people whose whereabouts are withal unknown," Cantera says. "That means that that person has not been allowed to brand a phone call, or that person is detained in a place and we don't know where they are because he or she does non announced in the records … Nosotros are non trying to say that these people take died, [but] they are people whom to this day we exercise not know where they are."
The Cuban authorities has remained tight-lipped near the verbal numbers of people who have been detained, missing or charged following the protests. The regime did disclose that i person had died as a result of the protests, but the opposition group Cuba Decide judge the number of deaths is at least five.
Havana has also blamed the protests on supposed agitators from the Cuban diaspora in Southward Florida, besides as the United states authorities. While the listing of detainees includes opposition activists, others are described every bit "unemployed" or "housewife". Katherine Martin is listed every bit a "pupil and model", while her sister Miriam is described as a manicurist.
The efforts of Cantera and her cohorts take drawn the attention of Cuba's security state. While neither she nor her colleagues take been detained or arrested, Cantera told The Postal service that ane of the "verification girls," as she calls them, has been placed under police surveillance.
"What they do is that they put a law patrol exterior her house and don't allow her out, and that person is still under police surveillance to this day," she said. "We also know that some officers have been visiting some of the detainees who take already been released, asking them most lists, we know that in some interrogations of detainees inside the facilities, they asked about the listing, and who was making the list.
"So we know that, yeah, it is a bailiwick that has come up out of the interrogations; but, well, to this day none of us has been detained or called for a summons, nor accept we been summoned for this piece of work," Cantera added, saying that such a summons was "something that we do non rule out happening at some signal, either."
Meanwhile, the Cuban regime has sought to loosen restrictions in an effort to tamp down public unrest. Three days after the protests, the regime announced it was lifting caps on the amount of food and medicine travelers could bring into the state, a motility Cantera called "a pocket-size Rough-and-tumble for all the problems we have here."
"The Government of Cuba is denying admission to human rights observers and is counting on the world to turn a blind eye to its repression. Just nosotros will non look away. This is repression," a Country Department spokesperson told The Post Tuesday. "We join the families who are suffering and scared, Cuba's man rights defenders, and people around the earth in calling for the immediate release of all those detained or missing for simply exercising their human rights to liberty of expression and peaceful associates and demanding freedom. We are also joining efforts to catalogue and enhance awareness about specific instances of abuses against peaceful protestors.
"Violence and detentions of Cuban protesters and missing independent activists remind united states that Cubans pay dearly for freedom and dignity," the spokesperson added. "We call for the immediate release of those wrongfully detained."
The Cuban Embassy in Washington, DC, did non render requests for comment past The Post.
One calendar month later the July xi protests, Cantera says the overwhelming feeling in Cuba is "a lot of fear" amongst people who worry about the consequences of speaking out.
"I accept a friend who had never had any kind of behavior on social networks and she posted something, as she was quite outraged about what had happened," she recounted. "Simply after, she was very afraid of having written that, in fear for her own well-being and that of her family unit. Then, in that location is fearfulness even of writing a mail on Facebook."
Cantera said her friend'south fears were well-founded, as the Cuban government has gotten into the habit of checking people'southward Facebook pages in order to define their "social and moral behavior" during the protests and their aftermath.
"One of the things everybody thought after July 11 was that that would be it, that the government was going to come to its end, that the totalitarian system was going to fall," she says. "Simply the reality is that days have gone past and that, well, has not happened and I don't believe that it will happen every bit soon equally we were expecting information technology to."
Meanwhile, those who took office in the protests, were arrested, and were either released on bail or to house arrest, have suffered what Cantera calls "a terrible trauma from the violence they experienced, either in the protests or in the prisons and in the law stations.
"So, there is a terrible fear," she said.
Source: https://nypost.com/2021/08/10/inside-cubas-crackdown-after-dramatic-protests/
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