“Only” 724 Dissident Arrests in May in Cuba

Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

HAVANA TIMES — During May at least 724 “arbitrary arrests for political reasons”, took place in Cuba, a figure which means a decrease compared to previous months which exceeded a thousand, according to the dissident Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), reported dpa news.

The “relative decline” is due to a “change of tactics” of some groups that reduced the number of their demonstrations “that attract invariably political repression,” said the report of the organization.

Instead, the opposition is “choosing to work more with civic communities,” according to CCDHRN.

The grouping recorded during the month of May at least 37 physical assaults, 228 acts of harassment and three acts against property, “executed or instigated by the secret political police and vigilantes.”

During 2016, the CCDHRN has posted more than 6,000 arrests for political reasons. The totals were 1,441 in January, in February, 1,141 in March, 1416, and 1,380 in April.

The spokesman of the banned but tolerated CCDHRN, Elizardo Sanchez, also reported raids in different homes acting as headquarters of the opposition group Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), in which “half a dozen computers and cell phones, cameras and documents” were seized.

The figures cannot be contrasted with data from the Cuban government, which does not acknowledge any political prisoners or short term detentions.

7 thoughts on ““Only” 724 Dissident Arrests in May in Cuba

  • You are a kind sou!

  • CM. Perhaps, CEmle is saying this with tongue in cheek. No one is that naïve. Just saying.

  • Everyone is a prisoner in Cuba. Wake up and get rid of the Castro clan!

  • What a crass denial of fact. CErmle brings with him a unique level of ignorance which he insists on displaying at every opportunity. This very evidently is a man with no actual knowledge of Cuba, no knowledge of the CDR, no knowledge of the successive Papal interventions on behalf of political prisoners in Cuba – in fact not much knowledge of anything – just a bleating windbag.

  • Hahahahaha!

  • There are NO political prisoners in Cuba.

  • How sad is it that 724 people were arrested for their political differences with the Castros and we celebrate it because it is LESS than the norm? Even one arrest for political expression is one too many.

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