Lawyer asks Cuban Television to end reports by Humberto López

The lawyer ofCubalex Julio Alfredo Ferrer Tamayo asked theCuban Television to put an end to the presenter's reportingHumberto Lopez, in which he assumes the functions of jurist and interpreter of the law to threaten thecuban activists and intimidate the population.

“The highest authorities of Cuban Television, especially those of the Information System, should not continue giving the space of the Cubavisión Stellar News to journalist Humberto López, so that he can use that mass media to materialize his obviously careerist purposes,” he demanded. the lawyer last Thursday through hissocial networks.

In an extensive publication, Ferrer Tamayo made a list of the bad practices committed by the presenter in supposedly informative spaces, in which López makes value judgments about alleged criminal acts, which have not been tried or sentenced, in order to create states of opinion contrary to the demands of the activists ofCuban civil society.

“They should limit themselves exclusively to the fact. [Journalists]They cannot ensure that an accused or defendant is guilty if a conviction has not been issued against him or her and that it has become final.", the jurist reminded the authorities of the official media.

Likewise, he denounced as contrary to the law López's habit of “naming the accused as: murderer, rapist, aberrant, indecent, unscrupulous, vandal,” a practice that “many political and government authorities have also engaged in, including the president of the nation.”

If they engage in these practices, journalists would be breaking “the principle of the presumption of innocence and the human right to the honor of that person, who until that moment must be considered innocent.”

“In addition, it negatively influences a criminal process in progress,when what is known as a 'parallel trial' occurs, which violates due process”, warned Ferrer Tamayo.

López, who regularly threatens activists who exercise their right to free expression, is fond of predicting what sentences may fall on them for alleged crimes that have not been proven and, sometimes, not even investigated.

“Journalists have no power to judge., a power that Humberto López has abrogated to predict the outcome of a legal process underway or that could be launched in the future,” said the lawyer.

In relation to self-incriminating videos that López presents in his spaces - such as those of the recent broadcast of the programReasons for Cuba, in which four protesters from the Nuevitas protests "confessed" to having been used by Cuban exiles-, the lawyer wondered what legal precept protects the authorities to provide the presenter with "these materials so that he can make them public and disseminate them through of Cuban Television.”

The height of these bad practices and absolute lack of professional ethics is perceived by Ferrer Tamayo in the open threats that the presenter makes to Cubans who protest or demand rights and freedoms that the regime he serves denies to citizens.

The broadcast of the Newscast on October 5 is an example of this, according to the lawyer. In her,López threatened with the application of articles of the recently approved Penal Code, “such as Public Disorders (article 263.1), or crimes against the integral development of minors (article 402).”

In addition, the presenter warned that the aggravating circumstances of criminal responsibility provided for in article 80.1 of the aforementioned regulatory body are applicable to the people who participate in the protests.

For Ferrer Tamayo, López's assertions are not true. Despite his training in Law,The presenter wields a Penal Code that has not come into force against the Cuban protesters.

“The new Penal Code is not applicable to those people against whom he has launched his threats, since the aforementioned Penal Code - in its second final provision - says that it will come into force 90 days after its publication, that is, the December 1, 2022.And retroactivity for the Criminal Law is only applicable when it favors the inmate and this is not the case.", indicated the jurist.

Lawyer for activists likeTania Bruguera OMaykel Osorbo, Ferrer Tamayo presented at the end of November 2020a complaint against the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel for the crime of "spreading epidemics", by calling and appearing in Trillo Park in Havana to officiate a tangana of revolutionary reaffirmation, in full confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A month later,The Attorney General's Office of Cuba exonerated the leader of the so-called “continuity” despite the fact that, after seeing the photos and videos, the prosecutorJosé Luis Reyes Blanco admitted that the reported facts were true.