Cuban lawyer denounces violation of rights of Bayamese who participated in 11J protests before the UN

In case ofRafael Cutiño Bazan, Cuban imprisoned for his participation inthe historic protests of 11J in Bayamo, Granma, was reported this Monday to theUnited Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

“I have sent mycase No. 56 against the Government of Cuba before the investigation procedure of individual cases of theUN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, based in Geneva, Switzerland,” announced the lawyerSergio Osmin Fernandez Palacios, from the legal groupCitizen Intelligence.

The file presented denounces “the deprivation of liberty of Rafael Cutiño Bazán, 27 years old, from Granma, on the occasion of participating in the demonstration on July 11, 2021 in Bayamo,” the lawyer indicated on his social networks.

The claim in favor of the young Bayamese states that Cutiño Bazán “He has been deprived of liberty for more than 300 days still waiting, along with others, for notification of the ruling from the Criminal Section of the Popular Municipal Court of Bayamo.”

Tried along with other protesters on May 24 and 26, 2022, the young man is accused of the alleged crimes of Attack, Public Disorder and Contempt,for which the prosecution asks for 16 years of deprivation of liberty. He is currently in preventive detention, awaiting his final sentence.

The text of the complaint (20 pages) includes testimonies that indicate that the young man has been a victim of mistreatment and violations of rights, constitutional guarantees and the Nelson Mandela rules of the UN (norms established to guarantee suitable standards of treatment for prisoners. and penitentiary administration).

After introducing the context in which the 11J protests took place, emphasizing the “combat order” given by the rulerMiguel Diaz-Canel and the repression unleashed afterwards, which lasts to this day in the form of“judicial farces” and the terror unleashed by State Security, Dr. Fernández Palacios detailed the case of the young man who went out that day to demand freedom in the streets of Bayamo.

“In the afternoon of July 11, 2021, Cutiño Bazán joined the peaceful demonstration that was taking place in the Retablo de los Héroes Park,” states the Citizen Intelligence complaint. “Then he headed on his electric motorcycle to Avenida de los Mártires, where hundreds of people shouted slogans such as ‘Díaz-Canel S…’ and ‘Down with the Communists,’” the text adds.

The protest was violently repressed by “a human barrier that was formed by very violent people dressed as civilians, who arrived in a state truck, brand Zil 131, license plate B189725, from the Ministry of the Interior of Granma.” His intervention included “beats and strangulations, which is proven in a home video taken on a mobile phone.”

Likewise, "the complaining source assures that these repressors used stones, in the midst of a maelstrom of confusing violence against each other."

After the violent and illegal arrests that day, “criminal proceedings marked by abuse, degrading treatment, negligence, violations of rights, police interrogations under psychological duress without the presence of legal representation and failure to comply with judicial guarantees” began.

Citizen Intelligence qualifies the processes as “the inquisition in the Cuban version of Totalitarianism and under the protection of an obsolete law of criminal procedure” and assures that “the precautionary measure of Provisional Prison (without judicial control), from exceptional, became be unofficial to make the situation of protesters not aligned to the PCC more abusive.”

The young man from Bayamo, who has been in prison for more than 300 days, was violently arrested on June 11 by paramilitary troops who confronted the protesters. As if that were not enough, during his imprisonment “he has become infested with scabies, like many, due to the terrible phytosanitary conditions in the penitentiary centers.”

From the perspective of Human Rights, in the criminal process carried out against Cutiño Bazán and other protesters, constitutional guarantees of the criminal process were breached and several rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights were violated, said Fernández Palacios.

Elements set forth in the "Set of principles for the protection of all persons subjected to any form of detention or prison" approved by the highest international organization were also violated, the jurist stated, indicating that in accordance with its work protocol, the GTDA -The UN must now pass the complaint to the Cuban government, diplomatically, which will effectively begin the procedure.