Díaz-Canel intensifies repression against critical voices in Cuba, alert report

Miguel Díaz-Canel’s regime committed at least 152 repressive actions against activists and the civilian population in January, including 18 arbitrary arrests and 66 abuses against political prisoners or their relatives, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.

«The Cuban regime still does not seek solutions for the serious problems that the Cuban population is going through, however, it keeps its repressive apparatus of harassment against activists and opponents,» said Yaxis Cires, director of strategies of the organization.

Cires pointed out that, in these times, more than ever, the work of the opponents “for the failure of the regime in responding to the needs of the people and the failure of the political, economic and social structures that need a change of way of way immediate ”.

In its most recent report, to which Martí News had access, the Observatory highlighted the release of some 170 political prisoners after the efforts of the Vatican, «a process that is currently maintained».

The political prisoners benefited by early freedom are subject to the surveillance of the PNR organs (Revolutionary National Police) and social and mass organizations and will be supervised by an execution judge that will ensure that they maintain a labor or student link, no They leave their municipality, do not think on social networks, do not comment against the Cuban government or statements to the independent press, among other obligations.

Among the released prisoners, is the opposition leaderJosé Daniel Ferrersubject to «a permanent harassment» both against him and against those who visit him, denounces the OCDH.

The organization highlights that the coercions against the opposition continue and in this sense it details the citations to Ferrer before the courts, the expulsion of the journalist Yania Suárez of the Ludwig Foundation, in Havana, after pressures of state security, the arrest of opponents who were trying to go to the wake of the lady of Blanco Yolanda Santana and the denial of extrapenal benefits to political dams.

“We know that there are many challenges internationally and we are in a panorama that is constantly moving, however, we believe that states, governments, international institutions of the necessary surveillance and defense of human rights in countries cannot be forgotten in countries in countries Like Cuba, Nicaragua, in Venezuela, ”urged the director of the OCDH.

«It is inadmissible what is happening: they are populations that are dying in the slow chamber of the repression and hunger to which these regimes are condemning their nationals,» he said.

The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights considers that the regime has intensified control over opposition and critical voices, using repressive tactics, the same in the physical field as in digital, to restrict the right to freedom of expression.

Among the documented cases is that of the independent artist Fernando Almenares Rivera, known as Nando Obdc, who was arrested in Havana under the accusation of being linked to a fire in Lenin Park and the harassment against Jorge Enrique Rodríguez, collaborator of Diario de Cuba , «Cited and questioned by the repressive forces.»

He also recalled the arrest of the anthropologist and activist Jenny Pantoja, when she was going to a park to carry out the protest that on the 18th of each month they carry out a group of activists and intellectuals, headed by the Matancera academic Alina Bárbara López Hernández.