Photo: FAMILY ARCHIVE / BBC / Courtesy
A teenager from 17 year-old was sentenced to eight months in prison in one of the summary trials taking place on the island for recent protests against the government, reported her mother and a center for legal support.
Gabriela Zequeira received her prison sentence on Thursday after being tried for about six hours for “public disorder” along with others 11 accused Said her mother Yoanis Hernández, who witnessed the process.
She added that she does not know where her daughter was transferred after the trial, which in her opinion was carried out without presenting evidence that Zequeira had participated in the demonstrations of the 11 July, the largest in Cuba in several decades ..
“When the trial was over, it was three minutes that I left n see it. The only thing I could do was hug her and kiss her, nothing more, “Hernández told BBC Mundo.
” She told me: ‘Mommy, Get strong, nothing is going to happen to me but I am going to appeal. ‘ She is aware that she did nothing, ”he continued.
Cubalex, an independent group of Cuban lawyers that follows arrests and summary trials in the island for the protests, confirmed that Zequeira was convicted by a court.
BBC Mundo sought to obtain information about this case from the Cuban government, but that was not possible until the publication of this article.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denied on Thursday that minors are imprisoned or missing in the country, and assured that “all Cuban legal guarantees” are met for those who remain under arrest.
destroyed ”
The recent wave of arrests and summary trials in Cuba has been criticized by different governments and international organizations.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights reported Friday that it has documented the arrest or the disappearance of at least 757 people due to the protests , 13 of them minors.
Hernández affirmed that his daughter, a student from accounting, she was detained in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón in Havana when she was going to a hairdresser, saw a demonstration in the distance and decided to return, according to the minor in her own trial.
He specified that Zequeira was arrested by “black wasps”, as members of the Special National Brigade of the Cuban government are known in Cuba, which this week was sanctioned by the United States for “repressing” protesters.
“One grabbed her arm, the other by the neck, they pulled her by the hair and put her inside the truck,” said Hernández.
He added that since then he could not see or speak with his daughter until the trial on Thursday, about which he was only informed on Tuesday night.
He reported that he got a lawyer for his daughter in a few hours, but that some of the defendants who were tried together with Zequeira in the Diez de Octubre Court lacked legal representative.
Hernández pointed out that in addition to his daughter that day another adolescent from 17 years and sentenced to one year in prison “for recording” the protests.
Unicef, contacted days ago by BBC Mundo to find out its opinion on the arrests of minors old during the protests in Cuba, he indicated that it is “difficult to quantify the exact number of children detained.”
“Cuban criminal law establishes that they are only chargeable those greater than 16 years and recognizes a differentiated treatment to the commissioner of a criminal act who is between the ages of 18 Y 20 years ”, said the statement.
Hernández demanded that his daughter be released because “Tremendous injustice has been committed” with her.
“I’m devastated, they’ve taken a piece of me,” she said. “I don’t sleep, I don’t eat thinking about her: what is she doing? What are they doing to him? ”
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