Eight new political prisoners in Cuba, according to Cuban Prisoners Defenders

The Human Rights organization Cuban Prisoners Defenders (CPD) identified eight new cases of "convicts of conscience" in Cuban prisons, according to your monthly report published this Monday.

The new Cuban political prisoners are Yampiel Bernal Ampudia and Juan Galbán Hernández, activists of the United Anti-Totalitarian Front (FANTU); Yuselín Ferrera Espinosa, Maikel Herrera Bones, Isain Lopez Luna and Wilson Quintero Cabrera, of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU); Juan Miguel Pupo Area, of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic (MONR) and Walfrido Rodriguez Piloto, of the Opposition Justice Movement.

The organization removed from its list UNPACU members José Daniel Ferrer García, Fernando González Vaillant, José Pupo Chaveco and Roilán Zárraga Ferrer, released from prison in April, "after going through an ordeal of incommunicado detention and torture which has deserved the most unanimous international repudiation for more than six months".

"In the last eight months, 32 new 'convicts of conscience' have entered the list of Cuban Prisoners Defenders, but the prison repression carried out this last month breaks an already unpleasant trend of three or four new political prisoners per month, which confirms an unprecedented repressive action that is explained by the weakness of the regime imposed by State Security, which reports directly to Raúl Castro," the report states.

"All indicators point to the fact that the increase in repression of the “regime” is due to an ideological weakening of the implemented system and an evident lack of social support, aggravated by a health crisis situation that increases the risk of its breakdown and generates Therefore, the preventive repressive reaction of those who do not want to move the system towards a State of Law. The commitment to defending this future transition towards a State of Law is now more important and necessary than ever before, but it also entails. greater repressive risks for which we must be prepared and alert, and which will require more work to counteract," the report says.

CPD also denounced that, based on the information provided by the Cuban Center for Human Rights in its reports from January to April, and by its own and third-party sources, at least 30 journalists and activists have been persecuted and fined since January. based on the recent Decree Law 370, also known as "Azote Law".

"The very possible entry into prison of many of these arbitrarily fined, in application of article 170.1 of the Penal Code, is the basis of the threat that hangs over them, and not so much the fine itself. Proof of this is that There are already 7 other convicted and conscientiously convicted persons on our list for this precept of non-payment of fines that were previously imposed arbitrarily and beyond the reach of the economy of an average Cuban," the report states.

In January, CPD revealed that 127,800 Cubans are serving sentences on the island, of them 90,300 in prisons.

Last month Prisoners Defenders joined an independent initiative in Cuba to request the release of more than 100 political prisoners and more than 8,400 other prisoners without a known crime.