Raúl Soublett, the Cuban activist for Afro LGBT+ rights who He attacked himself this Thursday during an interrogation by State Security (SE), confessed that this was the only possible way to free himself from the threats faced.
“I attacked myself, it was the only way I found to get out of that uncomfortable, undesirable environment,” the activist wrote on Facebook.
Soublett added that during the interrogation the SE threatened him and forced him to choose between two options, that of therepression and the harassment to which the Cuban government subjects activists, or the collaboration and denunciation of their colleagues to the political police.
“They showed me two paths of which I chose neither. “I myself decided the path I was going to take,” said the activist.
He reported that he was summoned to the Acapulco cinema at 9:00 a.m. through a phone call the night before. Upon arriving at the site, he was taken to one of the houses available for interrogations, where the scenery appeared to be a relaxed, calm atmosphere, "but no, it was the opposite, it was a tense atmosphere."
“The interrogation escalated as he did not say what they wanted to hear. There was no shortage of accusations that my activism is being financed by organizations or people that receive money from the NED, and that I interact with people who are also financed for subversion in Cuba,” he said.
Some of the threats that Soublett received were directed at his university career and against the relationship that the young man has with the independent journalist Héctor Luis Valdes, who reported what happened in the first instance.
“So much blackmail, threats against my mother, my partner, my workplace, my university degree, giving me special treatment which I would see once I left that place; everything was unbearable. They exerted so much pressure on me that the only way I found was to attack myself to get out of that place, to end the interrogation,” he added.
The activist reiterated that he was to blame for his injuries, caused by a glass cup that he smashed against his forehead as a desperate method against psychological torture:
“They took me to that extreme where desperation and fear made me commit something that in my right mind I would never do. I have never tried to attack my life, my body, much less what happened was premeditated as they told me,” he stressed.
Soublett narrated in detail how the event occurred from his perspective:
“I asked that they leave me alone, in peace. My breathing became labored, my heart was racing, I was trembling, I grabbed a glass full of water and without thinking about it, without identifying at that moment what I was holding, I slammed it against my head. I didn't feel pain. I sped up and wanted to grab everything that was nearby. I destroyed the glasses, the table, his phone, I had the devil in my body. That devil was against myself. They brought that devil,” he wrote with regret.
The activist also said that the SE wanted to put on “a show” in a polyclinic, where a doctor stitched his wound, so that what had happened would not be known, and threatened him so that he would not make it public. Instead, they suggested he fake an accident in the street after falling or hitting a rock.
However, Soublett assured that he could not remain silent, and that with tears in his eyes he had to tell the unfortunate event to his partner.
“Now I'm calmer, but my head is a mess. I am very worried, fear is inevitable but determined to move forward, not to remain silent and denounce every abuse, every violation. I demand that these types of attacks against civil society stop. We are not criminals, nor terrorists, nor murderers. We are people, Cubans who fight to live in peace, to have a better country,” the activist concluded.
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