Journalists and Activists Share Horrific Accounts of Brutality During Cuba’s Largest Protests

“Other 11J It is imminent because the regime has not solved anything, everything has gotten worse and the malaise is widespread”says DIARIO DE CUBA journalist Waldo Fernández, who participated in the largest protests Cuba has experienced in years.

“The violence was there from the first moment. I joined the demonstration in the areas of the Capitol. I saw young people and older adults crying for relatives who had been taken before their eyes,” recalls the activist and lawyer for Prisioners DefendersFernando Almeida.

Almeyda says he remembers that July 11 vividly. “Where it got worse was near the Plaza de la Revolución. There was no going back. There the Police prepared a kind of final assault and it was very violent, people disappeared in front of my eyes. I don’t know how they identified the target, it was against women, elderly people, I remember that an old man disappeared from the stage, the blows were horrible, one of the stones they threw hit me.”

For Roxana García, activist and sister of political prisoner Andy García, July 11, 2021 was the most exciting and saddest day of her life. “I felt pride for my brother, we believed that that day would end everything and we would be free, but it was very sad when after a few hours I tried to call him and he turned me off. We began to receive news about the repression that was taking place.”

“My parents looked for him in all the units and prisons and they didn’t give us news. This is how we lived the greatest pride in our family and also began the greatest suffering.” Andy García is still in prison, he was sentenced to four years in prison, of which he has already served two.

According to Cuban prison laws, García, having served half of his prison sentence, could already opt for parole, something that has been denied to him, despite “the good opinion that the officers in prison have of my brother’s behavior.” .

According to lawyer Fernando Almeyda, his working at Prisoners Defenders is like “trying to get water out of the desert. I try to apply all possible legal actions from within to see if a good-hearted judge or prosecutor appears to recognize their rights. Cuba does not comply with international standards, but neither do national ones in criminal proceedings. Cuba is governed by what the military saysall others are diminished”.

“No NGO that works with Cuba manages to get the prisoner out of jail. At the most, he manages to get food and medication to enter, that they don’t hit him, the family member and the prisoner are very grateful to you. It is important to individualize each case.

Roxana says that in the case of her brother they have already exhausted all possible legal avenues and that has not given them any results. She has been publicly denouncing, raising her voice for Andy García and other political prisoners, how they have been able to give visibility to what is happening to them.

As the strategy director of the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights, Yaxys Cires, has mentioned on several occasions, It is important that families publicly denounce and do not expect that by maintaining silence you will obtain the approval of the Cuban authorities. “Political prisoners are bargaining chips for the Cuban government in future international negotiations.”