Cuba: Citizens Group Submits Petition for an Amnesty Law
and continue collecting signatures
“The freedom of our political prisoners, amid the humanitarian crisis the country is experiencing, is an urgent issue…”
HAVANA TIMES — A group of Cuban women activists formally delivered this Wednesday to the National Assembly in Havana a citizen petition to promote an amnesty law, with the aim of freeing the nearly 1,200 political prisoners in the country. The documents, submitted by Yenisey Mercedes Taboada Ortiz — mother of political prisoner Duannis León Taboada — Jenny Pantoja, and Miryorly García Prieto, include a technical-legal brief and a citizen petition letter that, so far, gathers 1,535 verified signatures.
To support their demand, the campaign recalls that Law 131 of 2019 “grants deputies the authority to propose draft laws,” and citizens the right to submit petitions. It is an initiative similar to that promoted by opposition leader Oswaldo Paya, who in 1998 presented his Varela Project based on Article 88 of the then-current Constitution, which allowed Cubans to introduce laws if a minimum number of citizen signatures were collected.
Current law allows Cuban citizens to request that the National Assembly draft a law, requiring a minimum of 10,000 verified signatures, with corresponding identity numbers. In response, the campaign For an Amnesty Now! has insisted that “this petition may be signed by any Cuban citizen, whether residing in the country or not, since we are all ethically and morally entitled to demand the freedom of our compatriots.”
As of February 2nd, 2,514 signatures had been collected, although only 1,535 signatories provided complete data or had their information completed and verified.
In a statement, the organization indicates that approximately 59% of the total signatories in this first count declare permanent residence in Cuba, and notes that 6% of those signing are relatives of political prisoners.
For an Amnesty Now! reported that the petition remains open to continue collecting signatures, which, “once the completeness and credibility of the data are verified, will be delivered progressively to the Assembly.” To that end, it links to a document so citizens can sign and fulfill the requirement.
“The freedom of our political prisoners, amid the humanitarian crisis the country is experiencing, is an urgent issue that today appeals to the responsibility, sense of justice, and humanism of every Cuban, and is likewise a point that has managed to bring together a very broad spectrum of opinions,” the statement says following the submission of the documentation.
“This is not only a petition protected by law and the exercise of a right, but also a symbolic and civic action that allows the citizenry to express its will to accompany the pain of hundreds of families and to prevent that wound — opened by the refusal to accept dissent — from remaining in the soul of the Cuban nation,” it adds.
On the website collecting signatures, activists recall that the petition arises from “the urgent need for justice and the humanitarian importance of addressing it at this time, when it will soon be five years since the unjust imprisonment of many Cubans following the peaceful protests of July 11 and 12, 2021, which left only one protester dead, who died from a gunshot to the back by a police officer and has not received justice.”
“From then until now,” the text continues, “the situation of political prisoners in Cuba has continued to worsen. Arrests and sentences against innocent Cubans have prevailed — people who have merely persisted in exercising the right to free thought, free expression, and other inalienable human rights such as freedom of association and assembly, enshrined in our Constitution.
The document also recalls that in Cuba “only one Amnesty Law has ever been drafted, in 1955, promulgated by dictator Fulgencio Batista for the attackers of the Moncada barracks (1953), invoking humanitarian criteria — made possible thanks to popular support from Cuban citizens and the advocacy led by relatives of political prisoners and other civil society organizations.”
Given this, they state that “it is at the very least contradictory, from a historical, political, and human standpoint, that in a project (the 1959 revolution) founded and still led by the beneficiaries and continuators of the amnesty in 1955, the popular will and the arguments that the relatives of our current prisoners present to the Assembly and the government of this country are now ignored. Arguments intended to call for a gesture of justice and humanism.”
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
It’s powerful to see citizens actively pushing for an amnesty law, especially given the stated humanitarian crisis. I wonder how the petitioners plan to keep momentum going while continuing signature collection—that sustained effort must be incredibly challenging.