The increase in poverty, lack of medicines, energy cuts and high inflation in Cuba have triggered several demonstrations over the last few years and which now threaten to return with more intensity. Faced with this scenario, the regime threatens death penalty whoever participates in possible protests, considered “illegal” by the Cuban totalitarian system.
On April 25th, on the television program We make Cubaused to propagandize the Communist Party, senior officials from the Ministry of the Interior and the Justice apparatus warned about the possible consequences that could face those who participate in the demonstrations called for this week.
Otto Molina Rodríguez, president of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme People’s Court, referred to the crime of sedition, used for political purposes on the island. “The intention is to subvert order, subvert our rule of law and social justice so that they can fulfill their objectives of colonizing our country.”
Sedition, provided for in article 121 of the Penal Code, includes penalties of ten to 30 years in prison, life imprisonment or the death penalty.
“If the crime is committed in exceptional situations, catastrophe or affecting the security of the State, or during a serious disturbance of public order, or in a military zone, with the use of weapons or the exercise of violence”, in these circumstances the penalty will be applied of death, claimed the regime representative.
Also participating in the program were Colonel Hugo Morales Karell, second Chief of the General Directorate of the National Revolutionary Police, and Beatriz de la Peña, head of the Investigation Department of the Criminal Procedure Directorate of the Attorney General’s Office.
The threats from the military and representatives of the Cuban justice system come a month after the large gatherings in the east of the country, when hundreds of citizens protested peacefully, between March 17th and 18th, asking for electricity, food and freedom.
The NGO Defenders of Prisoners (PD) revealed that around 38 people were detained for participating in the act and only four of them were released. However, according to information provided to the EFE agency by the organization based in Spain, the number may be higher due to the lack of official data from the regime.
These latest demonstrations were the largest since the historic protests of July 11 and 12, 2021, in which more than 225 participants were prosecuted for the alleged crime of sedition — at least 222 have already been convicted.
To justify the arbitrary arrests and convictions, Colonel Morales claimed that these demonstrations are encouraged by supposed terrorists based in the United States, who intend to attack authority and generate a climate of violence to delegitimize the Government.
According to him, these plans attempt to provoke an excessive police response, which can be used on social media to “demonstrate a failed government and false police brutality”.
Colonel Morales also attempted to refute allegations of abuse of power and police violence against unarmed citizens, describing them as part of alleged “unconventional war plans” in order to create a pretext to accuse Cuba.
Violation of human rights
The director of CUBALEX, lawyer Laritza Diversent, declared to the ADN Cuba platform that Molina Rodríguez’s statement is unconstitutional. “It is to interpret that any demonstration is something seditious, something totally incoherent and that it violates the supreme norm and international standards of human rights. The intention is to intimidate. Inhibiting people from going out to protest constitutes a threat to the exercise of fundamental human rights.”
The Strategy Director of the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), Yaxys Cires, highlighted that the organization reiterated its “condemnation and concern for the validity of the death penalty in Cuba for more than twenty crimes”.
The OCDH also spoke out on social media. “We condemn the threat of application of the death penalty, made on Cuban national television against those who participate in demonstrations on the island. Human rights must be guaranteed in Cuba and the death penalty must be immediately eliminated from the Penal Code.”
In Colombia, Senator María Fernanda Cabal reacted to the Cuban regime’s threats against those protesting. “The Cuban regime threatens those who participate in mass protests with the death penalty.”
Fidel and the death penalty
The 1940 Cuban Constitution completely abolished the death penalty in its article 25, with the sole exception of cases of military crime in special circumstances such as treason or espionage in times of war. However, this limitation was removed after the 1959 revolution, which brought Fidel Castro to power.
The dictator introduced several changes to the law in order to reinstate the death penalty and end the lives of anyone classified as an “enemy of the revolution”. Between 1959 and 2003, thousands of Cubans were executed, most of them in the first years of the dictatorship — their crimes consisted of opposing the Castro brothers’ regime. The organization Archive Cubabased in Miami, calculates that, in more than half a century since the Revolution, 3,116 people were shot and another 1,166 were extrajudicially executed, however he recognizes that it is impossible to know the exact numbers.
Although in 2000 a moratorium was established on the use of this maximum sanction, which implied its temporary suspension, in 2003 Fidel Castro ignored the moratorium and ordered the conviction and execution, all in just one week, of three young Cuban citizens who kidnapped a boat with the sole objective of escaping the island and trying to reach the United States.
Lorenzo Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Sevilla García and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaad were sentenced to death and eight other people were sentenced to two years in prison. This episode was part of the so-called “black spring”, in which, in addition, 75 people were arrested, including opposition activists, journalists and dissident intellectuals.
“The Cuban Revolution was placed in the dilemma of protecting the lives of millions of compatriots, punishing them with the legally established capital punishment”, argued the dictator at that time.
“Not even Christ, who expelled the merchants from the temple with whips, would fail to choose the defense of the people,” he added.
Currently in the new Penal Code, approved on May 15, 2022, the death penalty not only remains in force but also increases the number of crimes subject to maximum punishment and life imprisonment, in addition to maintaining many provisions that have been used for decades to silence and arrest activists. It also punishes anyone who “endangers the constitutional order and normal functioning” of the government, criminalizes the receipt of funds, further limiting the activities of independent journalists and activists, and limits freedom of expression on social media.
According to the organization Amnesty International, “Cuba’s new Penal Code, which was approved in May, although it came into force on December 1, risks further consolidating deep-rooted limitations on freedom of expression and assembly, and presents a frightening panorama for independent journalists, activists and anyone critical of the authorities.”
“For many decades, Cuban authorities systematically used criminal legislation to silence dissent. The new Penal Code contains a set of appalling provisions that give authorities even greater powers to continue stifling freedom of expression and assembly in 2023 and beyond,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.
In turn, the president of the Supreme People’s Court, Rubén Remigio Ferro, defended, in a speech in July last year, the application of the death penalty as a “defense” of the Cuban regime “We have to have it as an element of defense of the our society, as a defense of our State, of our Revolution, against the very serious threats in which we constantly live. And also for the peace of mind of citizens,” he said.
Infographics Gazeta do Povo[Clique para ampliar]
