(Havana) More than 200 Cuban and foreign activists called on Wednesday, in an open letter to Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to condemn the Cuban state’s violence in the face of the protest planned by the opposition on November 15.
“We call on you to join us in condemning without appeal the double institutionalized violence in Cuba: that of the State and that which it encourages with the modes of action, styles and speeches of paramilitarism”, write the signatories. in this letter of which AFP has obtained a copy.
Since the historic demonstrations of July 11, to cries of “Freedom” and “We are hungry”, “the Cuban government is keeping more than 500 demonstrators in detention” and “for many of them, excessive sentences are required, in their applying crimes specific to war scenarios, which has nothing to do with the country’s international situation ”.
A protester, accused in particular of contempt and disturbing public order, was sentenced to ten years in prison, the heaviest sentence imposed so far, AFP learned on Saturday from his relatives and a human rights organization.
The dissident political think tank Archipiélago (Archipelago) calls for a new demonstration on November 15 in Havana and in six provinces of the island. The government banned it, threatening its organizers with criminal consequences if they persist.
There are “enough revolutionaries in Cuba to face any kind of demonstration,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned on Sunday, while photos and videos were posted on social media showing civilians armed with guns. sticks or even guns, training for a possible confrontation.
“Against this civic and peaceful demonstration which has only its rights, its ideas, its words and digital technology as weapons, the violence assisted by paramilitary groups in Cuba is openly reactivated,” denounces the open letter on Wednesday.
“As the United Nations High Commissioner, it is essential that you publicly draw attention to this new threat of breaking the precarious civil peace in Cuba and to the use of paramilitarism by the state,” she concludes. .
Among the signatories are dissidents José Daniel Ferrer, Félix Navarro, Marthadela Tamayo and Manuel Cuesta Morua.