Prosecutor’s Office requests 3 and 4 years of deprivation of liberty against Cuban academics

The Municipal Court of Matanzas will criminally judge Cuban academics Alina Bárbara López Hernández and Jenny Pantoja Torres almost a year after the occurrence of the facts for which they accuse them.

The Prosecutor’s Office requested a sanction of four years of correctional work without internment for López Hernández, accused of contempt, disobedience and attack, and three, also subsidized, for Pantoja Torres per attack.

«A judicial farce, when we all know we were arrested because we were going to use our right to the peaceful demonstration. That is, there is no accident, we always do that day (the 18 of each month). They arrested us to avoid it, but now it turns out that it is not a political case, but a case of a common crime, as is customary,» said López Hernández in conversation with Martí News.

«After violating the period of 180 days that, according to the Criminal Procedure Law, is what corresponded to have submitted the case to court, almost a year of delay and with many Jenny pressures and mine on the Prosecutor’s Office that had fooled the case. Well, because it has already passed to court,» said Professor Matancera.

The trial is not yet set, he added.

On June 18, 2024, the two historians were heading to Havana where they planned to carry out the peaceful protest that the 18 of each month carried out, together with other activists, to claim the regime a series of political and socio -economic demands.

They were arrested near the bridge of Bacunayagua, which links the provinces of Matanzas and Mayabeque, and taken to the police station of «La Playa» in the Matancera capital. During the arrest, the police officers made «excessive use» of the force and hit López Hernández who left sequelae certified by the doctors in his body.

«What we face Alina and I is a misrepresentation by the Police, the Police Instruction and by the Prosecutor’s Office. A misrepresentation of the events where it is not mentioned, in reality, why they stopped us, which is for political reasons. It is a usual way of operating of the State and the security of the State in Cuba that is stigmatizing the opponents,» Jenny News told Jenny Pantoja.

The anthropologist condemned the practice of the regime to stigmatize her political opponents and sanction them «as common criminals and not as what they are really facing because later, within the prison, they are appointed even CR, which means ‘counterrevolutionary’, and have deals exposed to greater violence, to greater vexars, to greater difficulties within the prison enclosures, more inhuman, more inhuman, more inhuman, more inhuman, more inhuman, more Degrading, more humiliating for the person, more harmful. ”

«What we are facing is a process of falsification of what happened and where we, that we are really attacked and are victims of police brutality, because we are going to be sanctioned and processed as guilty. This way of operating is what makes, precisely, all state officials are stopped in international sands and say that there are no political prisoners here, because all are prosecuted for common crimes,» he said Pantoja.

The two intellectuals announced that in the next few days they will make a joint statement in which they will provide more information, as the process advances.