In Cuba to Protest = Sedition
Prosecutor requests 18 years in prison for a 20-year-old July 11th protestor. Mother: ‘His life has been destroyed’
HAVANA TIMES – Cuban mom Caridad Castro Ruiz asks for justice and freedom for her 20-year-old son, Kevin Damian Frometa Castro, detained for participating in the protests on July 11 in Havana. The Provincial Prosecutor’s Office requests 18 years in prison for the alleged crime of “sedition”.
“How do you explain to a child, who is not a criminal, who has been raised from the love of the family…, that has not killed anyone, that has not raped, that he will he spend his next 18 years behind bars?” asked his mother, mired in tears, in a video published by Justicia 11J (see below).
The group noted that Kevin Damián Castro Ruiz was 19 years old at the time of the events. He turned 20 in prison on October 15.
“How does a mother live with this pain? Where is the justice in Cuba? I believed that we lived in a safe country, in a country where we could grow, where there was benevolence and unfortunately, I have hit myself in the face with this brutal sentence. How can anyone sleep peacefully in the face of so much injustice?”
“My pain is that of all the Cuban mothers who are going through this. My son is a good boy, a good neighbor, a worker, who used to make coffee for his neighbors, who liked Cuban movies. Now they have destroyed my life, his, and to all of us. I ask for justice for my son, I ask for freedom,” she concluded.
Sedition added to the list of accusations
The Havana Prosecutor’s Office has begun to use the crime of sedition to prosecute Cuban adolescents and young people from La Güinera and Mantilla (Arroyo Naranjo municipality) and from Diez de Octubre, who participated in the protests of July 11 and 12 in those neighborhoods of the capital.
Kevin Damian Frómeta Castro is one of 76 protesters in the capital, including almost a dozen minors under 18 years of age, who are being processed under this crime. Punishment requests range from 13 years to 27 years in prison.
On July 15, four days after the outbreak of the most significant protests to have occurred in Cuba since 1959, the regime’s spokesman Humberto Lopez announced on the television program Hacemos Cuba, that those detained in the demonstrations could be charged with the crimes of public disorder, instigation to commit a crime, robbery, resistance, attack, injury, contempt, property damage and the spread of epidemics.
The charges that the protesters were initially faced, as well as the prosecution’s petitions, had the first objective of punishing those who participated in the protests. The idea being that when they serve their sentences, or even if they are finally released after months of provisional prison in which many have denounced having suffered physical and psychological abuse and lack of medical attention, they would not consider protesting again.
The second objective, analysts believe, has been to discourage future promoters and participants in protests and comes as a result of the announcements of new demonstrations on November 15th.
Related information to the convenient disappearance of Camilo Cienfuegos, includes the sudden death in an accident, of the pilot of the Sea Fury fighter plane, a month after the disappearance. The immediate beneficiary of Camilo’s passing, was none other than Raul Castro Ruz, who as original deputy, became Head of the Military. Raul was a firm supporter of executions of those revolutionaries who like Cienfuegos, Matos and dozens of others, were not communist.
Of course it may be possible that Cienfuegos flew of to the US to join the CIA, and plot against the Castros – a pigs might fly concept, that sycophants could adopt in support of their “propagandist artistry”.
There you are Mr MacD. You have illustrated the point I am making.
Up to 27 years, according to this article, is a fact. This fact will be listed in the court records. This is factual therefore, it’s what we call a fact in the English language.
That Camilo Cienfuegos was deliberately killed is a six decade old rumour. It is a completely unsubstantiated rumour.
Therein lies the difference.
It is entirely ludicrous to argue otherwise.
Up to 27 years for protesting also seems entirely ludicrous to me. As I have stated on various occasions, I am entirely in favour of the right to peaceful protest. That’s what this article is about.
…and the facts include that the Communist regime is seeking up to 27 years imprisonment for teenagers who dared to protest ! Perhaps Nick will dismiss that as “rumour” !
A fact is a fact.
A rumour is a rumour.
It’s as simple as that.
Nick is correct in observing that I display a “certain amount of anger” when commenting upon the behaviour of the communist government of Cuba. That is because they deny Cubans human rights and operate by repression. In short, Diaz-Canel and his Junta of “Los Gordos” are bullies.
Where Nick is not correct is in suggesting that the quotations I gave are not factual. In my world, 2 + 2 = 4.
Nick tries to deny that he is pro-regime regarding his views upon Cuba, but that flies in the face of his contributions.
Camilo Cienfuegos disappeared presumed dead six decades ago.
The facts are well known.
The rumours are well known.
In six decades no one has ever substantiated these rumours.
No one has ever proved anything or said anything to change the known historical facts.
Mr MacD knows this as well as I do. He has presented rumour as fact in order to back up his viewpoint. That I point this out does not make me in any way ‘pro-regime’.
Surely there is enough within this article to warrant criticism of the Cuban authorities without resorting to presenting six decades old rumours as historical facts?
Mr MacD often expresses a certain amount of anger.
I have a good deal of respect for this man but I do feel obliged, for the sake of reason, to pull him up on certain occasions.
When I question his propensity for putting forward unsubstantiated rumour as fact, he stoops to calling me ‘pro-regime’?
Pro Regime??
When someone is in complete and total denial of the myriad examples of links between conservatism and the far right, surely they gotta come up with something better than ‘pro regime’ ???
The bone that sticks in Nick’s throat is truth!
Quoting his heroes recorded views, opinions and actions, is described by Nick as “semi-facts and outlandish rumours”. He describes recorded history as: “a melange of the factual and non-factual.”
Perhaps instead of making an unsupported opinion, Nick might care to say which comments that I made are non-factual. in doing so, he ought to know that the trial of Huber Matos was recorded in full, as was the letter of resignation from Huber Matos to Fidel Castro. That there are several similar records of the “disappearance” of Camilo Cienfuegos and of the British made Sea Fury fighter plane that took of only two minutes following the take-off of Cienfuegos’ two seater aircraft – and that no further trace of Cienfuegos was ever found. Maybe Nick will explain that 2 + 2 = 7?
So come on Nick, parrot the usual pro-regime response!
One of the odd practices of totalitarian political systems, is that they keep records – even of their own crimes. The Nazi war crimes were documented by the Nazis. Stalln’s purges were documented by his own minions. Cuba retained detailed records of numbers executed, many without trial.
Perhaps Nick can explain why it is that in the now published photographs of Fidel entering Havana on January 8, 1959, the figure of Huber Matos on Fidel’s left, has been erased, but that was not possible in the newsreel, where he is clearly to be seen?
Truth will out!
The Cuban Authorities clumsily try to make an example of this young fella. They didn’t count on the reaction of his loving and patriotic mother.
To what extent are the scales tipping?
Will the Government get through yet another crisis?
Or not?
Will the USA finally reassert control?
Will sovereignty set sail across the 90 mile Florida Straits?
This is all serious subject matter.
However, I see that the arch conservative Mr MacD lovingly seizes on another opportunity to interweave facts, semi facts and outlandish rumours in order to compile his usual narrative which is related as if entirely factual.
But in reality it is a melange of the factual and the non factual.
Mr MacD, if I were wearing a hat this fine Sunday morning, I would duff it in honour to your well grooved propagandist artistry.
Bob Michaels refers to Huber Matos, who in his letter of resignation to Fidel Castro, wrote:
“Great men begin to decline when they cease to be just”
Both Raul Castro and ‘Che’ Guevara, urged Fidel to execute Matos, but Fidel declined saying:
“I don’t want to turn him into a martyr.’
At the trial personally conducted by a vindictive Fidel, one of his own officers Faustino Perez, enquired:
“Is this Batistiano terror?”
Fidel Castro responded:
“No, this is revolutionary terror.”
38 other revolutionaries who were non-communists, were sentenced along with Matos, who stood at Fidel’s left hand, when he made his entrance to Havana on January 8, 1959.
Another dissenter in the upper echelon of the revolutionary was Camilo Cienfuegos, who conveniently disappeared by an “accident” – with no remains found! Camilo was anti-communist and perhaps even more popular than Fidel, making him an alternative leader. He had to go!
While an 18 year prison sentence is abhorrent, it is nothing new. Remember Huber Matos? One of Fidel’s commanders who was sentenced in 1959 to 20 years for attempting to resign as governor of Camaguey because he felt the revolutionary government was becoming communist? His original attempt to voluntarily resign as governor was rejected by Fidel, then when resubmitted months later resulted in his being found guilty of treason. Ironically, Matos was required to serve his entire 20 year sentence, 16 in solitary confinement, while Batista commuted Fidel and Raul’s sentence to time served for their part in the 26th of July attack on the Moncada barracks.
Intimidation! The Diaz-Canel junta comprises true communists with concern solely in power and control. Freedom, liberty and common humanity are regarded as counter-revolutionary and must be stamped upon HARD! Nothing must be permitted to change and the future can rot in jail. Speak up, those readers who contribute here in support of such tyranny! There is no “balanced” view, one either opposes or supports such actions.
It is difficult to imagine the level of pain that the communist regime has imposed upon the family of this young man. Imagine, when he is 38 years old, he will have spent half his life in jail. Fidel and Raul Castro having led an armed assault upon the Moncado Barracks during which people were killed, spent two years in jail prior to release. yet they described Batista as a “tyrant”. Clearly, Diaz-Canel and the system that he inherited from the Castros, is even better described as such.
“For the people of Cuba there remains only that faint hope which they have tenaciously clung onto for so many long years. Hope for the younger generations that they may yet know freedom and opportunity to live in their beautiful country free of repression, with freedom of expression, freedom of the media and freedom to vote for political parties of choice. Cubans deserve no less, for only then will they become members of an open society in a free world that waits to welcome them with open arms. Liberty and that poignant cry for freedom beckon and humanity demands.”
Final chapter of ‘Cuba Lifting the Veil’ published May 2016.
18 years for protesting where are all the Castro lovers pumping their tyranny?
We all know who the anti-democracy, dictatorship lovers are on here.