To promote a peaceful transition to a Cuba that respects human rights
and political and economic freedoms
Human Rights Watch denounces rights violations against Cubans trying to protest the killing of a young black man in Cuba in June 2020 by police
Human Rights Watch on July 28th denounced that "Cuban authorities committed numerous rights violations in June 2020 against people organizing a protest over police violence, effectively suppressing the demonstration." The human rights organization was referring to the murder of a young black man in Cuba by Castro's police a month earlier and the state security operation to shut down public protests over the killing.
Hansel E. Hernández,age 27, killed by Castro's Revolutionary National Police on June 24th
On June 24, 2020 in Guanabacoa, Cuba an unarmed 27 year old Black Cuban, Hansel E. Hernández was shot in the back and killed by the police. Officials claim that he was stealing pieces and accessories from a bus stop when he was spotted by two Revolutionary National Police (PNR in Spanish). Upon seeing the police Hansel tried to run away and the officers pursued him nearly two kilometers. They claim that during the pursuit Hansel threw rocks at the police. Police fired two warning shots and a third in his back killing him. Hansel's body was quickly cremated, and an independent autopsy to verify official claims is now impossible.
This would normally have ended silently with no one being the wiser, but Facebook and the courage of a traumatized family member prevented that outcome. On June 25, a woman posted on Facebook a photo of the dead Black youth who, she said, had been the victim of the national revolutionary police a day earlier.
"I feel deep pain for the murder of my nephew Hansel Ernesto Hernández Galiano committed yesterday morning in La Lima, Guanabacoa (in eastern Havana), by two patrolmen (police)," she wrote. "We, the family members, ask for mercy that this cruel act at the hands of our supposed national security does not go unpunished in any way. Because a police officer, a uniform, does not give the right to murder anyone in such a way. If we know very well that they are trained with personal defense, they must carry spray, tonfas, etc. Why then did they have to resort to their firearm and take a son from a mother, a father, a nephew from their aunt, a brother from their younger sister ... Noting that he was NEVER armed, please, justice.
"I feel deep pain for the murder of my nephew Hansel Ernesto Hernández Galiano committed yesterday morning in La Lima, Guanabacoa (in eastern Havana), by two patrolmen (police)," she wrote. "We, the family members, ask for mercy that this cruel act at the hands of our supposed national security does not go unpunished in any way. Because a police officer, a uniform, does not give the right to murder anyone in such a way. If we know very well that they are trained with personal defense, they must carry spray, tonfas, etc. Why then did they have to resort to their firearm and take a son from a mother, a father, a nephew from their aunt, a brother from their younger sister ... Noting that he was NEVER armed, please, justice.
Hansel E. Hernández,age 27, killed by Castro's Revolutionary National Police on June 24th
Despite this, the Castro regime, their allies, and agents of influence in the United States are engaged in a campaign to promote policing in Cuba as an improvement over policing in the United States. The Progressive, a publication founded in 1909 in Madison, Wisconsin on June 18, 2020 published a column titled "Foreign Correspondent: Police Lessons From Cuba" by Reese Erlich that claims "Contrary to the image of brutal and repressive communists, police in Cuba offer an instructive example for activists in the United States."
On July 26th the Minnesota Cuba Committee held a discussion titled "Police Conduct and Community Crime Control: Lessons of the Cuban Revolution". The main speaker was August Nimtz, a faculty member in the Department of Political Science, and African American & African Studies at the University of Minnesota.
What does real policing look like in Cuba, and civilian oversight? According to Cuban lawyer Humberto Lopez asked on June 10th, on an episode of his “Hacemos Cuba” TV show "recording the police officer isn't illegal or constitute a crime" but “if this image is uploaded onto a digital platform without this person’s consent, then you are using it without their authorization,”would violate the right to privacy of the police officer under Article 48 of the Cuban Constitution. The Cuban attorney added "that if the intent of the publication is to defame police actions (he didn’t say if it mattered if these actions were right or wrong), it is an administrative violation, which is subject to a fine, because it violates Decree-Law 370 passed in 2018, by the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications."
Professor August Nimtz in a July 7, 2020 webinar titled "Why there are no George Floyds in Cuba" excused the killing of Hansel by the National Revolutionary Police as a "rare and unusual" event, claiming that it "was being exploited by Cuba's opponents to incite division on the island." Cuban diplomats from the Embassy in Washington DC also participated in the webinar. If the United States had the same rules in place regarding policing then the killing of George Floyd may never have been known, and the young woman who recorded his death would be jailed or worse. Professor Nimtz also mentions how The New York Times supported the Castro regime in 1959, but failed to mention that the same newspaper on January 25, 2020 published an article that recognized that systemic racism exists in the Castro regime.
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