CUBA’S MEAN SWEEP
Mass protest arrests
In the wake of the July 11 street protests that rocked Cuba’s Communist regime, the Havana government has moved to reassert control by arresting hundreds of their own citizens, more than three dozen of whom are suspected of having been “forced disappearances.”
Beginning the week after the demonstrations, Cubans who had been swept up by the authorities were judged in summary trials in groups of 10 or 12 at a time, independent journalist Cynthia de la Cantera told The Post. She explained that Cuban law allows for such swift disposition of cases involving purportedly minor crimes, where the punishment is less than one year in prison.
“They are making what we call ‘exemplary’ trials, with many people who are being prosecuted without evidence,” she said.
“Many defendants don’t have lawyers, they don’t allow their relatives in court or their relatives are not notified,” Cantera added. “In some cases, the relatives were told the trial would be held at a certain place and when they arrived, it turned out the trial was being held elsewhere, they arrived late and therefore couldn’t enter. In short, there are many irregularities in this process.”
According to Cantera, relatives of defendants who do have access to legal representation are being told to keep quiet about their loved ones’ cases so that they may receive a lighter sentence. She notes that private legal practice is illegal on the island, leaving the accused to stand alone against a rigged system.
In an effort to break the code of silence, Cantera and other independent journalists and activists are working to catalogue information about their arrested compatriots.
As of late Tuesday, a Google document contained the names of 805 people who had been arrested or are otherwise unaccounted for in the aftermath of the demonstrations, the intensity of which Cantera described as unprecedented since the ascension of Fidel Castro to power in 1959. The list has been slowly built out despite the best efforts of the Cuban government to limit the spread of information about its actions.
“You have to realize that all this is functionally illegal and blocked by the Cuban government, so they’re trying to hack it as best they can while some among them are getting detained, disappeared, etc. and the Internet is shutting off all the time,” said author Antonio Garcia Martinez, who shared the list with The Post. “So, it’s a scramble on their side.”
The document, which is titled “List of detainees and disappeared Cuba July 2021,” includes each person’s name, the place they were last seen, the time and date of their detention if known, the latest report on their status and their age if known. Only a select few can update the document, in order to prevent proregime propagandists from deleting the information or spreading falsehoods.
Of the 805 detainees, 373 are confirmed as being detained at a known location.
A further 173 people described as being “en proceso de verificación,” meaning their current whereabouts are unknown.
Ominously, 39 people included on the list are confirmed or suspected of being “desapariciónes forzadas” — forced disappearances.