The figures of the repression in Cuba with the complicity of the 'democratic' left

@ElentirENG ES 8·04·2021 · 7:01 0

The historic July demonstrations calling for Freedom in Cuba have been answered by the communist dictatorship with a wave of harsh repression.

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There are currently 272 convicts and political prisoners in Cuba

This Tuesday the NGO Prisoners Defenders published a report indicating the figures of this communist repression against those who have demonstrated to demand freedom and democracy. The report indicates that there are 272 condemned and political prisoners in Cuba for opposition to the regime (the list can be seen here), but the wave of arrests has reached many more people.

The NGO points out that the month of July 2020 began in Cuba with 132 prisoners and convicts. A year later, 192 more political prisoners have been added to that list, of which only 48 have been released, almost all after having fully served the sentences that were imposed on them for reasons of conscience. Throughout July and until August 1, 124 political prisoners have entered Cuban jails, and many of them are also being tortured. The 272 political prisoners currently in Cuba are divided as follows, according to the report:

• "198 Convicts of Conscience, who are prisoners deprived of liberty solely for reasons of conscience, with accusations that are either completely and proven false and fabricated, or of a non-criminal nature and absolutely related to thought. This month we reported 124 new Convicts of Conscience."
• "39 Condemned of Conscience, who suffer forced home labor, measures to limit their freedom, conditional release under threats, or under a final sentence without execution, and that the regime, moreover, is used to revoke and insert in prison if the activist does not cease in his pro-democracy activity."
• "35 additional political prisoners, not framed in the previous categories, but identified in political prison behind bars. Those present on this list cannot be defended as Convicts of Conscience. Either violence has been in their causes in some way, or they have committed, coupled with their political imprisonment, punishable crimes. However, in all of them the political nuance, the null access to effective defense, and the excessive cruelty in the penalties make them political and defensible cases, in some cases to adapt the penalties to what was done."

11,000 civilians who did not commit any crime have been arrested

In addition, Prisoners Defenders points out that 11,000 civilians not belonging to opposition organizations have been detained, 8,400 of them convicted and 2,538 condemned, with average sentences of 2 years and 10 months in prison, on charges referred to in the Penal Code as "pre-criminal", that is, without having committed any crime. "The pre-criminal security measures in force, up to 4 years in prison, are applied through an article of the Penal Code that is infamous and violates the most basic principles of justice adopted by the entire International Community and made explicit in the Declaration Universal Human Rights. The regime arbitrarily qualifies, isolates from the community and subsequently criminally convicts innocent people in the thousands every year," the NGO points out.

The aberrant crimes contemplated in the Cuban Penal Code

Prisoners Defenders provides some examples of what the Cuban Penal Code classifies as a crime: conduct "in manifest contradiction with the norms of socialist morality" (Article 72), and conduct that "disturbs the order of the community" (Article 73.2) and mere "links or relationships with potentially dangerous people" (Article 75). These totally arbitrary criminal offenses, which are used to repress political dissent, are punishable by imprisonment of 1 to 4 years, penalties that also include "reeducational measures" for "antisocials" (Article 80). In addition, Article 404 of the Cuban Penal Code imposes these penalties summarily, that is, without ordinary criminal proceedings or the right to defense. In its report, Prisoners Defenders recalls that the Penal Code of the Third Reich included the same qualification of "antisocial" as the Penal Code of the Cuban communist dictatorship.

The complicity of the 'democratic' left with that communist dictatorship

In this wave of repression, and as it has been happening for 62 years, the Cuban communist dictatorship has the complicity of the left that calls itself "democratic" in Western countries. On July 15, I already cited here the support of Black Lives Matter (BLM) for that dictatorship, after that far-left organization denounced cases of police brutality in the United States. If police brutality occurs in Cuba and many Cubans are imprisoned and tortured for asking for Freedom, BLM does not care about those lives.

Something similar happens with the European left. Let us remember that in June socialists and communists voted against a European condemnation of the repression in Cuba, after an oversight exposed the collaboration between the Spanish socialists and the Cuban dictatorship to try to prevent this initiative of condemnation. In fact, while the Spanish government, a coalition between socialists and communists, refused to call Cuba a "dictatorship" and juggled verbally to justify its attitude, the extreme left in parliament went straight to supporting the Cuban dictatorship. It is the same left that boasts of "democratic" and that is always questioning the democratic character of its political rivals, whom it usually calls "fascists." When push comes to shove, that left shows as much contempt for democracy as the real fascists.

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Photo: PlantadosFilms.com.