San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Scathing report condemns abuses against activists
The U.S. State Department said it has received credible evidence of unlawful killings, forced disappearances and torture of political activists in a scorching assessment of the Cuban government’s record, released last week as part of the agency’s annual report on human rights practices.
In one of the most detailed accounts in recent years, the report warns of “significant human rights issues” in Cuba and highlights “systemic and violent repression” unleashed by the Miguel Diaz-Canel government against Cubans who took to the streets last July to call for political freedoms and better living conditions.
The Cuban government has admitted it has prosecuted more than 700 people, including 55 between ages 16 and 18, in connection with the protests. But activist groups say they have tracked more than 1,400 arrests.
“There were confirmed reports of long-term disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities,” the document adds. “Some detainees and prisoners endured physical and sexual abuse by prison officials or other inmates at the instigation of guards.”
Among the examples included, the agency mentions the case of the Garrido sisters, Maria Cristina, a writer and activist, and Angelica. They were beaten by police officers for participating in the July 11 protest in Quivican, a town near Havana, and Angelica passed out three times from the beatings, the report says.
“They transferred the sisters
A protester waves a Cuban flag at a rally against the rule of President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana in July 2021. Hundreds have been prosecuted in connection with the protests.
to a police station, where Maria Cristina received another beating,” the report says. When the police moved her to a prison facility, “authorities then put her in a cell so small she could not sit or lie down, and she began to experience severe headaches. Later they repeatedly forced her to shout ‘Long Live Fidel!’”
Maria Cristina was sentenced to seven years in jail,
and her sister to three years. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also condemned the treatment of the July 11 protesters in their own reports, describing several instances of violation of due process in the trials that followed.
“The Cuban government has sentenced 128 people to a total of over 1,900 years in prison for demonstrating and
expressing their views,” Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said on Twitter.
Cuban officials have denied allegations of torture, disappearances or due-process violations in connection to the mass protests.