Nine houses assaulted and more than one hundred arrested activists.
By José Daniel Ferrer García, General Coordinator of UNPACU.
UNPACU
December 18, 2016

Santiago de Cuba - A new crackdown of the tyranny against UNPACU. Nine homes raided and robbed, more than one hundred activists arrested, two beaten. More than ten remain under arrest.

On the morning of Sunday, December 18, repressive forces of the Interior Ministry raided and robbed nine houses of members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba in the province of Santiago de Cuba; six homes were assaulted in the provincial capital, two in Palma Soriano and one in Palmarito de Cauto. There is still no definitive assessment of the stolen objects as several of the victims remain in detention.

Among the means stolen by the infamous repressive forces of Castro’s tyranny are five laptops, removable disks, stick memories, mobile phones and their chargers, cameras, printers, radios, books, printed material, DVD’s, pens, lamps and rechargeable batteries, the money for food of the families assaulted, among other personal objects. These robberies are not only intended to deprive us of our means of work, but to strip ourselves of sustenance with the intention of subduing us by hunger.

In addition to the activists detained during the nine rounds, dozens of UNPACU members were detained in different provinces, mainly in the eastern part of the country. In Santiago de Cuba there have been 78 arrested activists, 10 in Guantanamo, 6 in Granma and 13 in Havana, for a total of 107. The number can be even higher. There are still activists with whom we have not been able to re-establish communication.

Among those still detained are Coordinators Ovidio Martín Calderín, Julio Antonio Cuesta Martínez, Samuel Leblán Pavón, Juan Salgado Jurado, Yennisey Jiménez Reina, Yeroslandi Calderín Alvarado and Yasmani Magaña Díaz. Yoandris Betancourt Castellanos and Rubén Torres Saiz were beaten. The last one while handcuffed behind his back. The henchman Dainier Suárez Pagán pushed, and threatened to hit, the young Martha Beatriz Ferrer, with 6 months of pregnancy. A neighbor of Ovidio Martín: José Luis Álvarez Chacón was arrested and accused of a false crime of assault.

A young activist, Lisandra Rivera Rodríguez, also remains in detention. Political police agents informed her mother, Damaris Rodríguez, that the Provincial Court had ordered her to remain in detention to prosecute her for the false crime of assault she was indicted for several months ago. Idunis Garcés Rodríguez was imposed an arbitrary fine of two thousand pesos.

UNPACU had called for peaceful demonstrations on behalf of political prisoners who survive in subhuman conditions and who are victims of beating, torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Our intention was to demand the freedom of Danilo Maldonado (El Sexto), the National Coordinator of the MCL Eduardo Cardet and Víctor Campa Almenares, Coordinator of UNPACU in Palma Soriano, on hunger strike since last 10 December in the prison of ¨Aguadores” as well as of all political prisoners, including 16 women imprisoned for their pro-democracy activism. We would also mobilize in solidarity with the Ladies in White.

Among the detainees was Vladimir Martín Castellanos, who has been on hunger strike for 9 days in protest of the 14 arbitrary arrests and deportations he has been subjected to during the past two months when he has tried to reach the municipality of Puerto Padre in the province of Las Tunas.

UNPACU has 48 activists in prison and so far this year we have been subject to more than 60 searches and robberies in our homes. Hundreds of our activists have been victims of arbitrary, often violent, detention.

Officers in charge of the repressive forces spared no threats of imprisonment, beatings and even death. Most of the detained activists made it clear to them that we do not have fear and that we will continue to fight for freedom, democracy and the welfare of our people. Faced with the indifference and weakness of democratic nations in the face of the excesses of Castro’s tyranny, this is becoming more and more aggressive and emboldened. UNPACU will continue to face it firmly.

 
Police raid of the headquarter of UNPACU in Altamira, Santiago de Cuba