Up to 15 years in prison against Cubans who participated in protests in Nuevitas

The Attorney General's Office requested it and the Provincial Court of Camagüey granted it, so that the justice that is administered under the totalitarian Cuban regime decided to sentence protesters who committed up to 15 years in prison. They took to the streets of Nuevitas in August 2022.

This was confirmed this Sunday by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), disclosing through their social networks the sentences imposed on 13 protesters who remained imprisoned for participating in massive and peaceful protests, in which hundreds of Nueviteros took to the streets to the rhythm of the conga and shouts of “freedom” and “put the current, damn!”

“These brutal sentences, the majority between 10 and 15 years (138 years in total), are part of the repression suffered by Cubans who express themselves critically about the current situation in the country,” the OCDH noted in its statement.

Expressing its condemnation of this new evidence of repression and injustice in Cuba, the Observatory considered that the sentences are symptomatic of “a hatred of the Cuban people who have no compassion for anyone and who do not listen even to the large number of petitions in favor of of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, including those of the Catholic Church.”

Of the 14 people who sat in the dock, 11 were found guilty of the crime of “sedition”, for which they will serve sentences of more than 10 years in prison. Only one of the accused was acquitted at trial, due to lack of evidence.

The young woman Mayelín Rodríguez Prado, better known on social networks as “La Chamaca”, was “sanctioned for the intentional and consummated crime of continuous enemy propaganda (10 years in prison) and as the author of an intentional and consummated crime of sedition (12 years in prison). ), for a joint sanction of 15 years of deprivation of liberty”.

Rodríguez Prado was the author of a video that circulated on social networks, in which it was recorded the violent struggle carried out by agents of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) against three girls, during the protests.

The young woman was one of those presented in the program Reasons for Cuba, presented by the spokesperson of the Cuban regime, Humberto Lopez. Rodríguez Prado, together with Lazaro Garcia Rios, Jimmy Johnson Agosto and Yennys Artola del Sol, They were recorded in the infamous self-incrimination video format which so pleases the State Security repressors.

In them, the protesters allegedly testified to the instructions received to “incite violence, manipulate groups of people and articulate situations of internal destabilization.” Despite having appeared in the aforementioned program as one of those arrested for the Nuevitas protests, García Ríos does not now appear among those prosecuted for these events.

Jhonson Agosto and Artola del Sol are among those sentenced. The first is punished "for the intentional and consummated crime of sedition (10 years in prison) and for the crime of sabotage (7 years in prison), for a joint sanction of 13 years of deprivation of liberty."

For her part, Artola del Sol was freed from the charge of “sedition” and was “sanctioned for the intentional and consummated crime of enemy propaganda of a continuous nature to 8 years of deprivation of liberty.” During López's program, the young woman "confessed" that La Chamaca had proposed to her "to write a poster in the noodle factory... my thing was to film the poster."

Among the “seditious”, the Provincial Court of Camagüey sentenced José Armando Torrente Muñoz (14 years of deprivation of liberty), Ediolvis Marín Mora (13), Lisdan Cabrera Batista (11), Daiver Leyva Vélez (10), Boar Velázquez Medina (10), Menkel De Jesus Menendez Woe (10), Frank Alberto Carrión Suárez (10), Lazarus Alexander Perez August (10) and Frai Pascual Claro Valladares (10).

The latter, upon hearing the sentence this Saturday, tried to kill himself in prison “Cerámica”, where he is being held, in the province of Camagüey

The protester Wilker Alvarez Ramirez was “sanctioned for the intentional and consummated crime of concealment to 4 years of deprivation of liberty,” while Yanelis Valladares Jaime She was acquitted due to insufficient evidence “as the author of the crime of sedition.”

The protests in Nuevitas took place in August 2022, when the country was under a harsh period of blackouts of up to 18 hours, similar to that experienced in recent times. At that time, the Cuban police intervened in the protests for two consecutive nights, but on the second occasion The police repression was broadcast live on social networks.

Little by little the names of some imprisoned protesters became known, although the regime never specified the number of people it detained in peaceful demonstrations in which hundreds of Cubans protested against precariousness, misery, repression and blackouts in Cuba.