Havana/This Friday, State Security deployed several operations in Havana to prevent journalists, activists and opponents invited to American Nights, a cultural meeting organized by the United States Embassy, from leaving their homes and attending the event. Patrols parked in front of the houses, plainclothes agents and threats of arrest were repeated throughout the day.
The repressive deployment had started days before. Since Wednesday, journalist Henry Constantín, director of Cuba Time He is detained in Villa María Luisa, headquarters of G2 operations and interrogations in Camagüey. On Thursday, in Pinar del Río, the repressor identified as “Major John” showed up at Dagoberto Valdés’ house to prohibit the members of the Coexistence Studies Center from attending the meeting: “We have come to tell them in advance so that they do not have a bad night.”
Yoani Sánchez, director of 14ymedio, reported shortly after eight in the morning: “I have an operation in the basement of my building, a police operation to prevent me and my husband, the journalist Reinaldo Escobar, from going out on the street.”
From the rooftop he showed one of the patrol cars and questioned the deployment given the country’s shortcomings: “How is it possible that resources are spent on monitoring two peaceful people, two journalists?”, while a huge mountain of garbage accumulated a few meters from the police vehicle.
“I am under siege in my home by the political police. No explanation, just the classic: ‘they can’t go out today’. The objective is to prevent attendance at a cultural event at the embassy”
The American Embassy echoed from Sánchez’s video and declared on his networks. “We are concerned that the regime prevents Cubans from moving freely and expressing their ideas. Freedom of movement, expression, and the press are fundamental rights.”
For her part, the independent journalist Camila Acosta denounced around 9:00 in the morning: “I am under siege in my home by the political police. No explanation, just the classic: ‘you can’t go out today’. The objective is to prevent attendance at a cultural event at the embassy.”
The case of the independent communicator and activist Adelth Bonne Gamboa the political police warned him since this Thursday that he could not leave his house and would have surveillance. An officer identified as “Rodrigo” showed up at his home and made it clear, as he said, “that he could not attend the embassy event.” He also warned him that he could be arrested if he tried.
This Friday, Rodrigo returned and a patrol car identified with the number 474 remained near Bonne’s home. The vehicle with the same identification also appears in images released by the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (Iclep) about the independent journalists Yunia Figueredo and Frank Correa. According to the organizationthe agents went to the house to inform the couple that they could not leave and would be arrested if they left the house.
Independent journalist Boris González Arenas also reported that an agent whom he identified as “Raisa” prevented him from leaving his house.
Laura Labrada Pollán, president of Independent and Democratic Cuba in Havana, had also received the notice on Thursday, as explained in an organization publication. An officer identified as “Samuel” came to his home around 8:30 a.m. today and told him that he could not leave and that doing so could bring “serious consequences.”
At the headquarters of Diverso Cuba, an independent cultural project linked to the Citizens Committee for Racial Integration, another State Security agent appeared around 9:30 in the morning to inform the activists Marthadela Tamayo and Osvaldo Navarro Veloz that they could not attend the fifth edition of American Nights.
The independent journalist Boris González Arenas denounced Likewise, an agent whom he identifies as “Raisa” prevented him from leaving his house. While the activist Wilber Aguilar Bravo, father of the 11J political prisoner Walnier Luis Aguilar Rivera, spread on their networks a photograph of a patrol car with the number 634 in front of his home and denounced “harassment, repression and cruelty” against him and his family.
