Sonia Garro’s trial postponed once more By People in Need Cubarepresión.impela.net July 4, 2014
As Sonia Garro’s trial has been again postponed, after initially being announced for June 30th, the Czech NGO People in Need would like to express its concerns about the potential outcome of her case. She has been accused of aggression, public disorder and attempted murder against a policeman who was trying to arrest her, charges for which she could be facing a ten year sentence. As her lawyer at the time mentioned, the accusations are unfounded and the sentences demanded by the Prosecution are excessive and unnecessarily severe. The trial was previously postponed in October 2013 without any explanations or the setting of a new date by the Court, as is often the case with trials dealing with political dissidents in Cuba.
As a member of the Ladies in White, Sonia Garro, along with two other opposition activists – her husband Ramón Alejandro Muñoz González and Eugenio Hernández Hernández, were violently taken into custody and arrested in March 2012, during Pope’s Benedict XVI visit to the island, following an aggressive intervention in which the authorities used the Special Forces.
They have been imprisoned without a trial for more than two years, during which Sonia’s health has deteriorated significantly. Sonia and her husband have both been repeatedly subjected to physical and psychological torture, i.e. beatings, interrogations, placement in isolation cells among other acts, while in prison. She had to be hospitalized several times due to poor health. Furthermore, on April 10th 2013, she was moved from the prison during the Open Day organized for the journalists, so that they couldn’t witness the terrible state she was in.
This is why People in Need would like to bring added public attention to her situation and to ask for human rights to be respected in the cases of Sonia Garro, Ramón Alejandro Muñoz González and Eugenio Hernández Hernández .
Sincerely,
Cuban Team / Equipo de Cuba
People in Need – Human Rights and Democracy
_______________
|