Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Rights Commission Counts 1,380 Political Arrests in Cuba in April

Rights Commission Counts 1,380 Political Arrests in Cuba in April / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 3 May 2016 – A report released on Tuesday by the Cuban
National Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation
(CCDHRN) announced that during the April there were "at least 1,380
arbitrary arrests for political reasons" in Cuba. A situation that
"confirms the ultra repressive policy adopted at the highest level of
the government of the island," says the document.

The independent entity questioned the attitude of the authorities which
is "aimed at trying to silence dissenting voices and any form of
peaceful public demonstrations of discontent." In the introduction to
the report an estimate for politically motivated arrests during the
first four months of the year is provided: "At least 5.351."

The CCDHRN comments on "the inability to quality the acts of repression
and the climate of intimidation against all society, a victim, also, of
massive campaigns of disinformation and diversionary propaganda." A
situation that keeps the Cuban people "in a state of complete
defenselessness and hopelessness" it says.

On 25 April, the CCDHRN published its most recent partial list of
prisoners currently incarcerated for political reasons, which included
the names of 82 Cubans imprisoned for so-called "crimes against the
state." However, in the report released Tuesday, it is reported that a
few days later that figure "had increased with four other women,"
members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) found in "provisional
detention."

The four activists added to the list are Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz
Miranda, Yunet Cairo Reigada, Yaquelin Heredia Morales and Marieta
Martínez Aguilera.

Two of them "are also members of the harshly repressed Ladies in White
movement," says the text.

The CCDHRN submitted a request for opposition detainees to receive an
"international recognition as prisoners of conscience." A request that
will extend also to "at least 20 peaceful political prisoners."

The Commission, chaired by dissident Elizardo Sanchez, will continue
demanding the "release, for purely humanitarian reasons, of 22 other
prisoners classified as counterrevolutionary who have been in the Castro
regime's prisons for between 24 and 13 years." The text details that
these prisoners are being held "under inhuman and degrading conditions."

Source: Rights Commission Counts 1,380 Political Arrests in Cuba in
April / 14ymedio – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/rights-commission-counts-1380-political-arrests-in-cuba-in-april-14ymedio/

No comments:

Post a Comment