The Cuban activist and content creator Anna Bensi responded to the state television program Con Filo, where the host Michel E. Torres Corona described her as "the most visible face of domestic counter-revolution," just days after a court sentenced her along with her mother.
In a video on Facebook that went viral in just a few hours, Bensi questioned whether the spokespeople of the dictatorship can use his image "to attack, defame."
And he questioned the lack of reciprocity: "Where is the space on national television to respond to this type of discourse? Where is the microphone with the same official support to challenge and refute their defamations? Where is the true debate, without censorship, without filters?"
The 21-year-old young woman sarcastically commented on the limits of freedom of expression on state television: "On national television, you have all the freedom in the world to say what the Communist Party allows you to."
He added that these media outlets do not like a plurality of opinions. "The dictatorship finds critical thinking dangerous; they are terrified of the truth because the truth brings them down."
In the episode of Con Filo, Torres Corona presented Bensi's sentencing as the result of a regular process, not political persecution: “Although there is an attempt to portray her as a political victim, the truth is that she was punished following a private complaint for a common offense, a crime against the honor and privacy of a citizen, in this case, a police officer.”
On October 1st, the People's Municipal Court of Havana del Este sentenced Bensi and her mother, Caridad Silvente Laffita, to two years of restricted freedom under Article 393 of the Penal Code, which defines acts against "personal and family privacy, personal image and voice, the identity of other individuals, and their data."
The excuse was a video recorded last March of a subofficer from MININT who went to the home of both women in Alamar to deliver a summons from State Security to the girl. That material became the basis of the criminal charges.
The penalty does not involve imprisonment, but it does include restrictions on movement, a prohibition on changing residence without court authorization, and an obligation to appear before the court when required. Both individuals also remain prohibited from leaving the country since the end of March.
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