Attorney General's Office ratifies sentences of up to 18 years in prison for 9/11 protesters

TheAttorney General's Office (FGR) communicated “the legal response” adopted in the cases of 76 citizens who demonstrated duringthe historic protests of 11J, dictating up to 18 years in prison for four of them.

“The Attorney General's Office of the Republic continues to inform the people about the legal response to the events of July 11, 2021, which attacked the constitutional order and the stability of our socialist State,” the institution indicated this Wednesday in astatement.

The final sentences were notified between June 16 and 21 and adopted in processes that family members and activists have described as a “judicial farce” by the courts of Havana, Matanzas and Santiago de Cuba. According to the FGR, the sentences were handed down for the commission of the crimes of sedition, public disorder, attack and contempt.

Of the 76 defendants who were notified of a final sentence,four of them will have to serve between 16 and 18 years of deprivation of liberty. The largest group (30 accused) received sentences between 11 and 15 years in prison, whileanother 22 were punished with sentences of up to ten years.

“Regarding 18 defendants, the custodial sanctions were subsidized by correctional work with and without confinement and limitation of freedom, which includes 12 young people between 16 and 18 years old,” the FGR reported. In the case of two other accused, “their acquittal was ordered.”

The statement recalled that failure to comply with “the obligations imposed by the Courts in their sentences, or the commission of a new criminal act, leads to the revocation of the subsidiary sanction and the fulfillment of the rest of the originally set sentence, in deprivation of liberty. ”.

With 19 days remaining until one year after the social outbreak that brought thousands of citizens to protest in the streets of more than 60 Cuban cities and territories,The government issues a “notice to sailors” through one of the bodies that have taken the most prominence in the repression unleashed against those who came out to demand change in Cuba shouting “Freedom” and “Homeland and Life.”

The reminder to those who remain in a regime of "limited freedom" not to commit "new criminal acts" includes not only the warning of the immediate return to the regime of deprivation of liberty, but also "the civil responsibility of compensating the people who were injured, as a consequence of the acts committed, and the reparation of the damages caused to the entities.”

With its sanctioning regime and the process of executing the sanctions that is now beginning for 74 protesters, the administration of Justice in Cuba hopes that “the educational, coercive and preventive purposes of these, the reinforcement of values, the rectification of the conduct of those sanctioned and their social reintegration.”

In mid-June, a total of 30 9/11 protesters, from Havana and Artemisa,They were sentenced to up to 18 years in prison. after filing an appeal, while three others received a change of measure.

In their cases they were also accused, fundamentally, of committing the crimes of sedition, sabotage and public disorder, according to a statement from the FGR. For its part,The Justicia 11J platform drew attention to the lack of transparency that exists in the issuance of this type of information by the Prosecutor's Office.

"It has not offered an official number of arrests as a result of the demonstrations, nor the development of administrative processes associated with them, nor total figures in relation to the different stages of the criminal process. On the contrary, the new information issued more than expands which had already been disclosed four months earlier, restricts it, now referring to figures that imply the completion of already lengthy criminal proceedings," the organization said in a statement.

With its classification of the protest (a right contemplated even in the regime's own constitution) as an attack "against the constitutional order and the stability of our socialist State",The subordination of justice in Cuba to the ideology imposed by the communist party is demonstrated.

In another statement in mid-June, the FGR reported that381 9/11 protesters had been tried, including 16 minors, accused of sedition; sabotage; robbery with force and violence; attempt; contempt and public disorder. Of the minors, 15 were also sentenced to correctional work with and without confinement, and limitation of freedom.