diariodecuba.com
Abused and Released: Cuban Intellectuals Alina Bárbara López and Jenny Pantoja
‘You have to be very sick in mind and soul to beat unarmed elderly women,’ says historian’s daughter.
The Cuban intellectuals Alina Bárbara López Hernández and Jenny Pantoja Torres were released from the Playa de Matanzas police station on Tuesday and immediately went to the hospital to check their physical condition after suffering beatings by agents involved in their detention, as they headed to Havana’s central park for the civic protest they attempt to carry out on the 18th of every month despite frequent repression.
“The henchmen always use brute force because they hate those who have their own minds, unlike them, miserable indoctrinated ones. You have to be very sick in mind and soul to beat two unarmed elderly women. All the honest people despise you and your acts,”
Denounced Cecilia Borroto López, daughter of Alina Bárbara, on her Facebook profile.
“Keep exposing your rotten faces under the mask of paternalism. We are not idiots, and each day more people are becoming aware of your ignominy. We hold you responsible if anything happens on the way from the police station to the hospital and from the hospital to my house,”
She added.
“My thanks to everyone who is concerned about my mother and Jenny. They will tell of the new humiliations and arbitrariness they experienced. Security forces, the homeland does not look upon you with pride,” she pointed out.
On Tuesday, Borroto López reported that State Security is prosecuting her mother for the alleged crime of assault.
Using the historian’s and political scientist’s Facebook profile, Borroto López said her mother,
“a 59-year-old woman who does not carry weapons, is being charged with assault. Everyone will understand the seriousness of such an act.”
“Assault is what you do every day against the people of Cuba, subjected to extreme poverty and repression. This State, which now intends to accuse her of assault, has not had the decency to charge the henchmen who, in the previous arrest, caused injuries that required medical treatment,”
The report stressed.
Jesús Pérez, husband of anthropologist Jenny Pantoja, told Martí Noticias that Pantoja was also accused of “assault.” Both activists were placed under house arrest while the legal process is ongoing.
The Academic Freedom Observatory (OLA) warned that “they are manipulating the figure of assault to implement a new paralegal device” against López Hernández. “We urge the community of human rights defenders to take an interest in this situation and take appropriate actions,” it added on Facebook.
López Hernández sustained injuries due to police brutality during an arrest under similar circumstances this past April 18, when she tried to travel from Matanzas to Havana. She filed a complaint against the violent agents with the Military Prosecutor’s Office in that city, but has not received a response.
The intellectual has been peacefully protesting every 18th since March 2023 in Matanzas’ Parque de la Libertad, in response to Cuba’s repressive situation. These actions, in homage to the Protest of the Thirteen on March 18, 1923, where a similar number of young Cuban intellectuals protested against governmental corruption, involve her wearing a blank sign around her neck.
López Hernández’s protest demands are:
“A democratically elected National Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution applicable in all its parts; the State’s attention to the critical situation of the elderly, retirees, pensioners, and families in extreme poverty; freedom for political prisoners without forced exile; and an end to the harassment of people exercising their freedom of expression.”
In response, State Security fabricated a common crime against her in 2023, condemning her to house arrest and restricted her from traveling abroad. She was tried and found guilty by the Municipal Court of Matanzas for refusing to attend illegal summoning by political police.
Read the full article in English on diariodecuba.com, using Google Translate.
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