Tag: Cuban prisons

More Cuban Comments on J11 Anniversary

Michel Suarez, a journalist for Los Puntos a Las ies, offered the following comments on the third anniversary of J11.[1]

“Three years after the historic protests of July 11 and 12, 2021 in Cuba , the living conditions of imprisoned protesters have worsened, in a scenario of blackouts, lack of food and more repression , activists and journalists denounced in the program Los Puntos a las Íes , from DIARIO DE CUBA.”

“There are more complaints about mistreatment and retaliation for having denounced the conditions in prison, and the State has not undertaken any procedure to review the processes and violations of guarantees that occurred during the trials and the subsequent sanction,” said Laritza Diversent, executive director of Cubalex.”

“Javier Larrondo, president of Prisoners Defenders, noted that between July 2021 and June 2024, his organization counted 2,331 political prisoners in Cuba, with 1,573 new additions to the list during the three years.”

“’Over the past 12 months, the trend has continued with more than 15 new people being imprisoned each month , so the list continues to grow and repression is increasing in Cuba without any apparent restraint.’ the activist denounced.’

“Journalist Waldo Fernández Cuenca described the current situation as ‘very complicated, because there is still a lot of repression.’ He recalled that ‘many relatives do not want to talk to the press, because they are still afraid and do not want to report.’”

“Cubalex announced the upcoming publication of a study on retaliation against prisoners and their families for reporting abuses from prison . ‘There is a significant increase compared to 2022,’ Diversent said.”

“For Fernández Cuenca, the international reaction has been ‘forceful, especially from democratic countries,’ but Diversent considered that ‘there is still much to do, because the international community still does not have enough information to provide such solidarity.’”

“Assessing the provisional repressive data for the first half of 2024, offered by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights – 1,792 repressive actions, of which 432 were arbitrary arrests – Waldo Fernández considered that ‘the conditions are in place for another social outbreak’.”

“’This has always been there after July 11, and it has been seen with protests in Nuevitas, Santiago de Cuba, Bayamo, Matanzas, Caimanera… And now, if the blackouts and chronic shortages continue, there will be new protests.’ warned the journalist.”

“At the end of the program, [Laritza] Diversent said that in Cuba ‘we are facing a humanitarian crisis’ due to the State’s demonstrated inability to resolve the basic problems of the population.”

“’People will go out to seek sustenance and demand that the government resolve their situation. If they cannot do so through official channels, protest is the only remedy left to them,’ said the director of Cubalex.”

     Other Comments

Several Cuban and international civil society organizations said that “more than 650 Cubans remain in prison for [the J11 protests]. And this April “the Cuban regime threatened “to apply severe sanctions, including the death penalty” to people who promoted or participated in demonstrations.[2]

Juan Antonio Blanco says that “this great national rebellion “showed that the majority of the [Cuban] population rejected a failed and repressive regime. The idea that the people lived happily in that society was a fabricated fallacy exported to the world. . . . The great lesson that was reiterated on July 11 is that nothing is achieved from a dictatorship without confronting it. . .  J11 brought about—finally—the long-delayed approval of MSMEs . . . [and] led the government to consider that by facilitating a mass exodus to the US it would get rid of all the rioters and even reap financial benefits.” . . . [Yet] the regime has not metabolized the essence of the new phenomenon that it is facing” and [all] the country’s laws have been strengthened to penalize the slightest expression of opposition, but also of dissent. . . . To gain governability, the only thing that could be done is to change the governance regime, the system of government that has ruled until today and that remains basically totalitarian.” [3]

Emilio Morales says Cuba “has been in a state of war economy for more than six decades; it is not something that suddenly emerged at the last minute. The war economy is the very essence of the system, it is its genetic basis, it is the matrix of control that dictator Fidel Castro implemented since the triumph of the revolution in 1959 and that has lasted from then until today. It was the most effective way to achieve citizen control. Very simple: it was necessary to eliminate all sources of wealth creation in the hands of citizens, take control of them in their entirety and find someone to blame for the economic debacle that would follow.”[4]

Now, according to Morales, “the Cuban economy is a disaster, its industries are in ruins, its banks are bankrupt, the state enterprise is totally decapitalized, foreign investment is scarce . . . more than 80% of the population lives in poverty, the country practically does not export because it does not produce. The productive forces are gagged by the system, by a legal system that does not allow free enterprise and limits the generation of wealth by citizens. Today the country depends on imports of products and raw materials, but does not have the financing to maintain them, because it has lost its lines of credit for not paying its external debt with creditors. This, added to the debacle of agricultural production has led to a deep shortage of products that has generated the worst inflationary crisis in the history of the country.”

Morales concludes, “The only way to stop the inflationary explosion and all the ills that plague the country’s economy is to get out of this parasitic and hegemonic system under which the Castro family has been exploiting Cubans and stealing the country’s wealth for 65 years.”

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[1] Suarez, Third anniversary of 11J: ‘The only remedy in Cuba is protest,’  Diario de Cuba (July  9, 2024).

[2] More than 650 Cubans remain in prison for the 11 J protests, three years later, Diario de Cuba (July 12, 2024).

[3] Blanco, Cuba, three years after 11J, Diario de Cuba ( July 11, 2024)

[4] Morales, ‘War economy’: the Cuban regime’s psychological torture mechanism, Diario de Cuba (July 12, 2024).

 

 

Cuban Reactions to Anniversary of 7/11/21 Protests

“There are still hundreds of participants serving sentences despite calls from democratic governments, the Vatican, the UN, Amnesty International and other international organizations, and in the midst of a political-economic context much worse than the one that caused that outbreak.”[1]

Yet “protests in Cuba do not cease. The last year has left other large-scale demonstrations in Bayamo, Granma; in Carreta del Morro, José Martí District and El Cobre, in Santiago de Cuba and in Santa Marta, Matanzas, during the days of March 17 and 18 , which also ended with arrests, although in a smaller number. In these protests, cries provoked by the current crisis were heard, such as ‘Food and medicine,’ ‘We are hungry,’ ‘Current,’ but there were also cries against the regime, such as ‘Down with the dictatorship,’ ‘Down with communism,’ ‘Down with Díaz-Canel,’ ‘Freedom’ and ‘Homeland and Life.’”

“Many of the reasons from July 2021 are still valid and, as of 2024, others continue to appear, such as inflation and the accelerated deterioration of basic services, so that both inside and outside the Island, other outbreaks similar to those of 11J are predicted. The regime knows this, and that is why it holds more than 600 political prisoners for demonstrating on that date and is particularly cruel to those who have a greater media reach due to their activism. This is the case of the leaders of opposition projects Félix Navarro and José Daniel Ferrer, the Ladies in White Sissi Abascal and Saily Navarro, the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara or the dissident Lizandra Góngora.”

“According to an analysis published in DIARIO DE CUBA, there is a pattern of denial of parole and suspension of correctional labor with arbitrary confinement imposed by the political authorities of the regime against the 11J prisoners. For many of these political prisoners and their families, the inequality in the treatment received by a person convicted of a common crime, regardless of the crime committed or the or the consequences produced, and a person convicted for political reasons is inexplicable.”

“In this regard, the former president of the Provincial Court of Villa Clara and member of the DIARIO DE CUBA team, Edel González Jiménez, maintains that “the subordination of the judicial system to the political power of the Island is the fundamental cause of the denial of the right to release prisoners, who are victims of the phenomenon of criminalization for political reasons.”

“The regime has also punished the relatives of political prisoners who have been tireless in the fight for the freedom of their loved ones and in denouncing the injustices, torture and mistreatment that the 11J prisoners have received. In conversation with DIARIO DE CUBA, several of these relatives tell how their lives have changed since then and how they see the situation in the country three years after the outbreak of July 11, 2021.”

“In the last three years, organizations such as Justicia 11J, Prisoners Defenders, and the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights have documented that between 963 and 1,113 people are detained for political reasons. Of these, at least 671 remain in prison for their participation in the July 11, 2021 protests.”

One of the parents of Jorge and Nadir Perdomo, imprisoned in different prisons without adequate medical care, said, “I think the protests on July 11 were something basic due to the situation that existed at that time during the pandemic, the power that was constantly going out, the neighbor who was dying, it was something very sad. At this moment, the current situation can also lead to protests due to the need for food and medicine in the country . Right now we are suffering from another epidemic in the country, and also the lack of power and everything else. Something that can make the protests return.”

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[1] ‘Too much injustice, too much abuse’: Three years after 7/11, Cuban prisons remain full and the streets are getting worse, Diario de Cuba (07/11/24).

U.S. Current Assessment of Cuban Human Rights

As discussed in a prior post, on April 20, the U.S. State Department released its annual report on the status of human rights in nearly 200 countries around the world. Here is the Executive  Summary of its report on human rights in Cuba in 2017.

Executive Summary

“Cuba is an authoritarian state led by Raul Castro, who is president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, Communist Party (CP) first secretary, and commander in chief of security forces. The constitution recognizes the CP as the only legal party and the leading force of society and of the state. The government postponed October municipal elections due to recovery efforts related to Hurricane Irma but conducted them in November, although they were neither free nor fair. A CP candidacy commission prescreened all candidates, and the government actively worked to block non-CP approved candidates.”

“The national leadership, including members of the military, maintained effective control over the security forces.”

“The most significant human rights issues included torture of perceived political opponents; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; politically motivated, sometimes violent, detentions and arrests; a complete absence of judicial independence; arbitrary arrest and detention that was politically motivated and sometimes violent; trial processes that effectively put the burden on the defendant to prove innocence; and political prisoners.”

“ There was arbitrary interference with privacy, including search-and-seizure operations in homes and monitoring and censoring private communications.”

“Freedom of expression was limited to expression that ‘conforms to the goals of socialist society’ with strict censorship punishing even distribution of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There were bans on importation of informational materials; strict control of all forms of media; restrictions on the internet, including severely limiting availability and site blocking; restrictions on academic freedom, including punishment for any deviation from the government line; criminalization of criticism of government leaders; and severe limitations on academic and cultural freedom, including on library access.”

“There were restrictions on rights of assembly to those that the government deemed to be “’against the existence and objectives of the socialist state;’ criminalization of gatherings of three or more not authorized by the government, and use of government-organized acts of repudiation in the form of mobs organized to assault and disperse those who assembled peacefully; denial of freedom of association, including refusal to recognize independent associations; restrictions on internal and external freedom of movement; restriction of participation in the political process to those approved by the government; official corruption; outlawing of independent trade unions; compulsory labor; and trafficking in persons.”

“Government officials, at the direction of their superiors, committed most human rights abuses. Impunity for the perpetrators remained widespread.”

Conclusion

I believe that a lot of what this Report says about Cuba is true. But it reflects a common failure of Americans to recognize and appreciate Cuba’s situation. As a relatively poor, small nation, Cuba has faced over the last 59 years a vastly larger, wealthier, stronger United States which has overtly and secretly attempted to impose or encourage regime change on the island. Under those circumstances, it should be easy for Americans to understand why Cuba has sought to control opposition.