Havana/A new day of police operations and repression takes place in Havana this Friday. Yoani Sánchez, director of 14ymediocannot leave his home, just the day after a kidnapping by State Security that lasted nine hours. Neither did another of those arrested this week, Adelth Bonne Gamboa.
The independent journalist Yunia Figueredo in a published video on their social networks He gave the explanation why a political police agent prevented him from passing: “due to the activity of the Embassy.” When Figueredo questioned the agent for prohibiting him from leaving, he responded: “My word is what counts, it cannot leave.”
In fact, the United States diplomatic headquarters in Cuba had planned for today an event on fashion and design within the program American Nights: A Celebration of American Cultural Excellenceto which he invited several members of civil society, as usual. The meeting takes place at 7 pm in one of the embassy houses in the Miramar neighborhood.
Others besieged by patrols are Marthadela Tamayo and Osvaldo Navarro, as well as the independent journalist Camila Acosta and the activist Yamilka Lafita (Lara Crofs). Lafita was outraged in a video published on her networks: the police operation prevented her from attending the funeral of an aunt who died this Thursday night in a hospital.
“I even tried to explain to them how delicate the situation was and they reiterated that I was prevented from leaving my house, without giving me another explanation.”
“These are the three male State Security agents (I have never seen them) who are next to patrol 222, two police officers and two women standing post in the middle of my block to prevent me from leaving,” wrote the opponent, who denounced: “I even tried to explain to them the sensitivity of the situation and they reiterated that I was prevented from leaving my house, without giving me another explanation and without even wanting to identify themselves. When I complained about this last thing, he told me that the patrol was there at his command and That was proof enough.”
Content creator Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente, known as Anna Bensi, and her mother, Cary Silvente, They also reported this Friday that they remained under siege since the morning in their building in Havana, with plainclothes agents guarding the four exits of the building and patrols deployed. The operation occurs a little more than a month after the Popular Municipal Court of Eastern Havana declared them guilty of “acts against personal and family privacy” and imposed a two-year penalty on each of them, for recording and disseminating a video of a plainclothes agent who came to their home to deliver a summons.
“The regime increases repression so that activists leave the country”
On the other hand, he is detained Karel Daniel Hernandez Bosquesmember of the independent project Fuera de la Caja Cuba. Relatives of this young man reported on social networks that he had been missing for at least five hours. “They treat us as if we were criminals just for publishing content on the internet. They deploy official operations, mobilize police officers, squander resources such as the scarce fuel that they so often claim to lack. And all because of videos that they watch ‘uncomfortably’,” they lamented. “This in a country where real criminals who do commit real criminal acts roam freely without any repercussions.”
These operations coincide with the publication, this Friday, of a report of the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), which documented at least 387 repressive actions during October, including 30 arbitrary detentions and another 357 abuses. The figure exceeds the 344 actions registered in September. The organization also counted 145 police raids against independent journalists, activists, opponents and relatives of political prisoners, as well as 73 complaints from common prisoners, politicians and their relatives.
“The regime increases repression so that activists leave the country, to intimidate the population and put pressure on the United States and the European Union,” warned Yaxys Cires, director of Ocdh Strategies.
