They denounce violent arrest of a bus driver in Havana

Cuban drivers denounced the violent arrest of a bus driver in La Fraternidad Park in Havana after a passenger accused him of alleged fraud.

According to a publication in the Facebook group "Bus Drivers Forever", the driver involved in the incident is called Henry and is a driver of the P14 on the La Joya de San Agustín 330-Parque de la Fraternidad route.

The complaint states that "a passenger gives her a 500-peso bill thinking it was 5 pesos and while the collector was looking for the change, the woman realizes that he had given her a 500-peso bill and accuses him of fraud."

"The driver immediately decided to give her back her ticket and she saw a policeman who was passing through Fraternity Park and started shouting that she had been scammed, which is not the case. Now the driver paid the consequences of what happened, causing a law enforcement agent to go to the scene," the group's text explained.

The complaint states that the police officer acted in the worst way, "he attacks the driver, he has him by the neck, until he decides to take him away handcuffed as if he were an animal, a murderer, a criminal... I wonder this way of "Treat a Cuban citizen in this country to the point of even removing you from your job like a criminal?" he questioned.

The publication details that the driver is being accused of "attack."

"Attack by what and on whom? If the one they have grabbed by the neck is the driver, I can't understand the laws of this country," laments the author of the publication.

He summarizes that these events demonstrate the vulnerability of certain Cuban strata, such as bus drivers.

"They are the first to open their eyes and many times the last to close them, they are the most sensitive link when an event occurs on their means of transport. No one thinks that thanks to them and their expertise our buses remain circulating on our streets," the Internet user recalled.

"To those who have not been physically and verbally attacked, threatened, beaten and accused of crimes that they have not committed, events like this make us value even more the work of our drivers and realize the risks they run when carrying out such important work," he stressed.

He recalled that 15 days ago they beat the driver of a P11, "they even broke the car's floor tiles, and his shirt was stained with blood" without the police doing anything to help him.

The complaints of police violence in Cuba They have become frequent on social networks. In mid-November, a Cuban reported to the Havana police for physically attacking him and fining him 4,000 pesos after buying six loaves of bread on the street.

In October, two blind people from Las Tunas suffered police abuse against them for marketing products.

Also this week it emerged that a police officer killed an alleged criminal with a knife, although in this case several sources indicated that it was during an arrest and in self-defense.

The police officer was injured during the struggle with an alleged criminal in the Caibarién municipality, in the province of Villa Clara, and was identified by the official press as Ariel López Águila, first lieutenant of the PNR.