CUBA: Antúnez and Other Activists Resume Protest and Sit-in at State Security Headquarters in Matanzas

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CUBA: Antúnez and Other Activists Resume Protest and Sit-in at State Security Headquarters in Matanzas
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Pictured are some of the activists from central Cuba who are taking part in the sit-in in Matanzas. File photo taken May 25, 2008. (Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoners Movement)

Matanzas, Cuba. June 25, 2008. Cuban Democratic Directorate. A group of 12 Cuban human rights activists, including former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" and his wife Iris Pérez Aguilera, gathered to continue a demonstration before the Provincial Headquarters of the State Security in Matanzas after being violently interrupted last Friday. The activists are on hunger strike and holding a sit-in to denounce human rights violations against the unjustly imprisoned Mario Pérez Aguilera. This act of protest directly challenges the same authorities that arrested and violently abused the activists mere hours after European sanctions on the Cuban regime were lifted.

At present, the activists are surrounded by State Security forces and paramilitary groups, including two police squad cars with license tags 211 and 735. The activists taking part in the sit-in include: Carlos Morales Rodríguez, Yuniesky García López, Pedro Tápanes García, Blas Fortún Martínez, Alexis Oms Pérez, Benito Ortega Suárez, José Hernández López, Frank Reyes López, Ernesto Mederos Josarena, Carlos Alvarez Guerra, and Idania Yánes Contreras. According to reports made by Idania Yánes Contreras, more activists from various provinces are on route to join the sit-in.

Yesterday at noon, the group had visited the Agüica Prison in Matanzas to demand that Iris Pérez Aguilera be allowed to visit her brother. The authorities made this impossible by conditioning a visit on her persuading him to abandon his protests.

“I told the official that I would neither accept threats nor conditions. My brother is protesting the injustices that are committed in prison on a daily basis,” stated Iris Pérez Aguilera by telephone to the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

Last Friday, June 20, 2008, mere hours after the European Union decided to lift diplomatic sanctions against the Cuban dictatorship, activists Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez", his wife Iris Pérez Aguilera, Idania Yánes Contreras, Yesmi Elena Mena Zurbano, Blas Fortún Martínez, and Benito Ortega Suárez were violently arrested at 10 a.m. They were not released until the early hours of the following day, after being beaten and harassed for hours on the State Security bus used to transport them, and then later in the State Security Headquarters in Villa Clara where they were held.

Antúnez and Pérez Aguilera had issued a statement on June 19, 2008 announcing their sit-in to demand respect Mario Pérez Aguilera’s rights. Mario is a founder of the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoners Movement and is unjustly held at Agüica Prison on a false common charge. Mario Pérez Aguilera, who is Iris’s brother, is unjustly imprisoned in Agüica Prison on a false common charge and was beaten on May 29 by prison guards. He has been on hunger strike since that abuse occurred, demanding respect for his rights as well as a transfer to a prison in his home province.

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