In the wake of widespread anti-communism protests in Cuba, government officials are detaining and prosecuting citizens without due process.
Across the island, relatives are lining up at police stations to find missing relatives. Some are attempting to deliver clothing, food, and other amenities.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Cuban police have arrested an estimated 500 demonstrators and activists who were among thousands who poured into the streets on July 11 to protest against deteriorating living conditions, the lack of freedoms, and scarcity of basic goods and services including Covid-19 vaccines under the Communist regime.
Most of those detained during and after the demonstrations are young people from the poorest corners of the country who have been held incommunicado, relatives say. Authorities have yet to disclose the charges on which they are being held.
Authorities have said demonstrators will face summary trials behind closed doors, which gives defendants and their attorneys little time to study charges or present evidence. Prisoner Defenders, a Madrid-based legal action advocacy group, said the Cuban procedure “flagrantly violates the guarantee of due process.”
“Some demonstrators have been released, but those who are seen as influential or more visible aren’t going anywhere,” remarked Danelis Iglesias, the wife of rapper Adrian “El Radikal” Zamora. Iglesias said that her husband — who produces music critical of the regime — was arrested moments after stepping out of the shower and carried away in shorts and flip flops.
As The Daily Wire reported, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) explained in a Tuesday speech that the release of political prisoners — along with the establishment of a free press and the advent of multiparty elections — will automatically end the embargo on Cuba, which is targeted at the regime rather than the Cuban people.
“They don’t want individual Cubans to have a paycheck that they earn for themselves,” Rubio said of the Cuban government. “They want what little you have to come from them — because if you don’t do what they tell you, they can take it from you. That’s what they want… They don’t want the people of Cuba to have liberty. This is all about control.”
“Anyone who stands up and says, ‘There’s an embargo, there’s a blockade by the United States, and it’s cruel, and it’s causing all of these problems’ is one of two things: They don’t know what they’re talking about and they’re just parroting some talking point, or they’re liars.”