This month has been marked by repression against peaceful protesters, a large-scale crackdown on independent journalists, torture of prisoners with psychiatric conditions, and the denial of prison benefits for political prisoners entitled to them, such as parole or suspension of correctional work, according to a statement.
Specifically, eleven people were detained «arbitrarily» for participating in the protests of the population of Juraguá (Cienfuegos) on May 28th.
These protests, according to PD, arose after this locality was left without electricity for more than 14 hours in one of the almost daily blackouts, and 27 days of water shortages.
«The authorities imposed a bail of 200,000 Cuban pesos (530 dollars in the real exchange market in Cuba, an unattainable amount for most Cubans) and are being prosecuted for alleged crimes of ‘public disorder,’ ‘contempt,’ or ‘assault’.»
Among the detainees is Erich González Lima, a journalist residing in the Nuclear City of Juraguá, according to PD.
In addition, on the anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Cuba on May 20th, «the regime deployed a repressive operation against activists and independent journalists across the island: arrests, interrogations, seizures, and threats.»
PD cites cases of several journalists, such as Yosmaury Casares Soto and Raciel Álvarez Díaz, from the Panorama Pinareño media, «detained in San Juan and Martínez (Pinar del Río)» on May 9th, whose work equipment was «confiscated.»
Furthermore, José Luis Boada Valdés «has been sentenced to 9 years of deprivation of liberty for the crime of ‘propaganda against the constitutional order.’ He had been imprisoned in the Combinado del Este for more than two years for writing several phrases contrary to Miguel Díaz-Canel, president of Cuba, on a wall.»
PD also warns that «the Cuban regime imprisons people with psychiatric conditions and disabilities in ordinary prisons, where they suffer humiliations, abuses, and torture by officials.»
Adel de la Torre is a young man who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and, at 25 years old, «was imprisoned for peacefully protesting» in the social protests of July 11, 2021.
He is serving a seven-year sentence in Prison 1580, San Miguel del Padrón in Havana, where he has suffered, PD reports, «violent beatings by guards, and witnesses the torture suffered by all prisoners with mental illnesses in this prison.»
