In Cuba, not wearing a mask can land you in jail
If you don’t wear a mask in Publix, it could earn you some dirty looks and you might be asked to leave.
In Cuba, it can mean a stiff jail sentence.
A video published by the Cuban Supreme Court of Justice on Thursday provided several examples of Cubans sentenced in quick trials to one-year prison terms, “correctional work” or payment of steep fines under charges of “spreading an epidemic.”
Sleeping in a park without a mask, gathering late with friends to drink beer outside a gas station that doubles as a cafeteria, leaving isolation without authorization, these are some of the small acts of disobedience that are costing Cubans their freedom during the coronavirus pandemic.
In one instance, a man who was in isolation under suspicion of being infected with COVID-19 at a hospital in El Cerro, a neighborhood in Havana, was sentenced to one year in prison, the maximum penalty, because he resisted the medical personnel and left the building.
In Santa Clara, the police dispersed a crowd of 15 to 20 people gathered past midnight in a gas station (in many provincial towns, gas stations also serve food and alcohol and work as social hubs for bored youngsters). Most ran away, but four were detained and sentenced to “correctional work with internment” between six months and one year because they were violating social isolation orders.
“Three of them were not wearing a mask,” according to a slide shown on the video.
The government is currently enforcing quarantines where local transmission of the virus has been detected. It closed schools and shut down air travel. Still, some of these measures came late in March, when many other countries had already taken similar steps.
The island now has 1,285 confirmed coronavirus cases, and health authorities have reported 49 deaths as of Friday.
This week, Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel warned that the government issued a “social isolation” order, so people should not wander in streets and parks without a justified reason.
“We are going to act more directly against all those people,” he said.
In the video, Otto Molina, the president of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, said the speed of these trials did not “violate any rights,” nor did broadcasting them, because the hearings “are public.”
The video showed images of one of those hearings.
But the Cuban government rarely broadcasts trials unless it wants to send a political message.
“We have to do prevention to send a message of social rejection of that behavior and one that is also persuasive and dissuasive,” Molina said.
In a country where the authorities expect full compliance with all government orders, being “defiant” can aggravate the charges.
A man who also left isolation in Las Tunas province was only fined 4,000 Cuban pesos, about $183, because he was not “that defiant but had a low perception” of the risks posed by the coronavirus, Molina said.
Another man who was found sleeping in a park without a mask was not granted the same benefit of the doubt.
“I was at my mom’s house, and I was going to my workplace, walking from Marianao [a Havana neighborhood]. When I was close to Jalisco Park, I fell ill, and some people laid me down and gave me a glass of water,” the man said as he stood in court, his face blurred in the video.
But an unidentified woman testified that the man had been fined on April 10 for not wearing a mask while drinking in public.
The video of the trial is undated, but a comment made by the judge suggests it took place on April 13, a week before Díaz-Canel talked of tougher measures against those violating government orders.
The judge added that the man had a criminal record for “illicit activities,” an all-encompassing charge that can mean many different things on the island, and that the court found his behavior “defiant.”
“I know it’s dangerous. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to infect anyone. I have children,” the man pleaded.
He was sentenced to one year in prison.
In a notable exchange, the man hosting the video asked the Supreme Court judge “where it was written into law” that wearing a mask was mandatory or that crowds past midnight were banned.
The judge acknowledged it was “not possible” to have all health measures written into law. “This is why, in addition to being a written norm, because reality is changing, the [criminal] code should be supplemented with logic.”
Article 187 in the Cuban penal code provides blanket criteria regarding public health’s enforcement, and calls for punishing those who “violate the measures or provisions issued by proper health authorities for the prevention and control of contagious diseases,” with fines or jail sentences up to a year.
The government is punishing not just those who do not comply with the advice of health authorities, but also independent journalists reporting during the coronavirus crisis and even citizens sharing criticism on social media.
Award-winning independent journalist Monica Baró was recently fined 3,000 Cuban pesos, about $137, for posting content on Facebook deemed “contrary to the social interest, morality, good customs and integrity of people.”
In a letter signed by several writers and former
Latin American presidents, Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa warned that some governments are using the pandemic to seize more power and suspend legal rights.
“In the dictatorships of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua,” Vargas Llosa wrote, “the pandemic serves as a pretext to increase political persecution and oppression.”
The Cuban government says it is protecting lives.
“There is a small segment of the population that either because it has a low perception of the risk or because of its defiant behavior is risking other people’s lives,” Molina said on the video. “And that we won’t allow.”