To promote a peaceful transition to a Cuba that respects human rights
and political and economic freedoms
Young Cuban father Luis Robles jailed and sentenced to five years in prison for defending jailed artist
Luis Robles Elizastigui still jailed, and now sentenced to five years prison for peacefully protesting in 2020.
Luis Robles Elizastigui, who has been jailed for one year and three months for silently protesting with a cardboard poster calling for the freedom of Denis Solís González has been sentenced to five years in prison on charges of “disobedience” and “enemy propaganda”. Luis Robles has already been subjected to ill treatment by prison guards, and prisoners carrying out the guard’s orders to target him that rise to the level of torture.
The level of the outrage requires some context to understand its full extent.
Police illegally raid the home of a musician. While ransacking the artist’s home the intruder is videotaped by the aggrieved party that hurls insults at the rampaging police officer. Nothing incriminating is found. Because the musician insulted the government agent ransacking his home and recorded it, he is arrested and charged with “desacato” [ contempt] of the police officer and jailed.
The arrest generates notoriety and a month later a single individual takes to the street walking silently in a picket with a cardboard poster demanding the freedom of the aforementioned artist. The Cuban dictatorship condemns the artist to eight months in prison for contempt, and this week sentenced the lone protester calling for the freedom of the jailed artist to five years in prison.
The message is clear, Cuba is a dictatorship.
Cuba today is not a free country, and has not been one for over six decades. It is a communist dictatorship with thousands wrongly jailed. Hundreds are jailed for peacefully protesting, but thousands are jailedunder the Orwellian charge of pre-crime, for what they may do in the future.
Below are some of the details surrounding the series of events that led to Luis Robles Elizastigui being unjustly sentenced to five years in prison. He is a prisoner of conscience.
FreeMuse, the Danish NGO that advocates for artistic freedom of expression, reported on November 9, 2020 that the: "Rapper, activist and member of the San Isidro Movement Denis Solís González was detained in La Habana after sharing a video on 6 November of a police officer entering his house without a warrant, reports ADN Cuba."
Rapper Denis Solís with his colleague Eliexer “El Funky” Márquez shortly after leaving prison.
Cuban journalist Carlos Manuel Álvarez, in his Spanish column in The Washington Post published November 20, 2020 described the arrest and aftermath as follows, "Solís, a young rebellious Cuban rapper, called a policeman “a coward wrapped in a uniform” who on November 7th entered his house to harass him without his permission. He filmed the altercation with his cell phone and posted the video on his social networks. In a summary trial, without a defense attorney, Solís was sentenced for contempt to eight months of deprivation of liberty."
Less than a month later, Luis Robles Elizastigui walked along the San Rafael Boulevard in central Havana on December 4, 2020 with a piece of cardboard converted into a poster calling for the freedom of Denis Solis, an end to repression, and freedom. Videos were taken by passersby and uploaded to the internet.
He was arrested without resistance by the police, and charged "with 'acts against state security.' According to Diario de Cuba the charge was filed by First-Lieutenant Roberto Batista, who issued an order for 'temporary detention.'"
Luis Robles with poster fashioned out of cardboard in December 4, 2020 one man protest.
14ymedio identified the "young man as 28-year-old Luis Robles Elizastigui, originally from Guantanamo, who is the father of one son. Bystanders rushed to his defense when police tried to arrest him for holding up a cardboard sign that read, “Freedom, no more repression.” The sign also included the hashtag '#FreeDenis,' a reference to the rapper Denis Solis, who was sentenced to eight months in jail for alleged contempt."
A Habeus Corpus motion filed on December 14, 2020 was rejected by Popular Provincial Tribunal of Havana and he remained held at the headquarters of the secret police in Villa Marista. He was transferred to the maximum security prison of Combinado del Este in Havana. Activists reported that a prison official has instructed other prisoners to repeatedly physically assault him, and expressed their concerns for his safety.
Five months later Luis Roble’s brother, Landy Fernández Elizástegui, was interviewed by Luz Escobar for 14ymedio. This is what he had to say about the prison conditions his brother is induring.
Luz Escobar. What does your brother say about his stay in jail?
Landy Fernández. Due to the COVID issue, I have not been able to see him, not even when he was in Villa Marista (the central prison of State Security in Cuba). As soon as he arrived at the Combinado del Este prison, in the first days of January, we were able to speak on the phone and he began to tell me about the experiences he was having there, of the mistreatment, the threats, the repression.
One day they beat him, stripped him, got him wet and moved him every two hours from one cell to another. At the time of that call, I was at the Prison Directorate’s office at 15th and K Streets with my mother, who came from Guantánamo to see if she could do something which I, as his brother, could not. We were meeting with a ‘population service’ employee and when Luis confirmed these tortures, I had the opportunity to speak with that woman and put my brother’s call through with his complaint so that she could hear it directly in his own voice.
She told me that they were going to order an investigation to find out if it was true, but that never went anywhere. I went to the Attorney General’s Office, they told me to write a letter making the complaint and that they would give me an answer in 60 days, but that date has already passed and I have not received a response yet.
The last time they put him in the punishment cell was when Humberto López said on the news that they had called a demonstration for March 12th in the Plaza de la Revolución. From there Luis came out with all his skin in shreds due to an allergic reaction. Liquid was oozing from the entire surface of his skin.
One year and three months following his arrest and continued arbitrary detention Luis Robles was sentenced to five years in prison for “enemy propaganda” in a trial that did not meet international justice standards. Agence France Press broke the story on the sentencing of Luis Robles.
"The accused Luis Robles Elizástegui is sentenced to five years' imprisonment for the crimes of enemy propaganda and disobedience committed intentionally," the court document dated March 28 states.
Denis Solís was released from prison on July 11, 2021, and found that he was subject to continued police harassment, threats, unable to leave his house or work, and many more friends were arbitrarily detained in terrible prison conditions.. Denis left Cuba for exile in Serbia on November 29, 2021.
No comments:
Post a Comment