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Antúnez denounces torture and death threats against his person for "obstructing US-Cuba relations."
By Directorio Democrático Cubano

Placetas, Cuba, June 13, 2014. Cuban Democratic Directorate.  On the morning of Friday June 13, 2014 Cuban opposition leader Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antúnez" was released after suffering a raid on his home and arbitrary detention with violence of he and his wife arrest, who is also an opposition activist, Yris Pérez Aguilera. An hour after his release Pérez Aguilera was also released.

Among the State Security officers Antúnez and his wife were able to identify are Eric Francis Aquino Yera and Mario Moré Perez. Both participated in the beatings and cruel treatment against them in State Security headquarters in the city of Santa Clara. And these officers told Antúnez that the search and arrest were due to the growing number of anti-government posters appearing in Placetas, and that he had become an obstacle to the "normalization" of relations between the regime of Cuba and the United States. He also said he had orders from the Minister of the Interior "to bust me up".

  “Arriving there they (State Security agents) apparently pretended kindness, after a while they took me out, the same police officer who interviewed before started to question me. It was terrible, (he said) that the national leadership of the country, of the revolution, was tired of my misdeeds, that this new phase I was encouraging, they would not tolerate anymore. They told me that for three things they assaulted the house: “First:  Because you are inciting propaganda distribution, Placetas has become a real chalkboard. Second: Because you have become the spokesman here in Cuba, in combination with the extreme right of the exile, as a barrier to the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba. Third: We know that you lead here in Cuba this new trend that is causing us problems, that the revolution may have a recovery and for your fault and many recalcitrant people in and out of Cuba that has not been achieved, declared Antúnez a few minutes after returning to his home in Placetas.

He added that he was assaulted during the interrogation by a man in a white coat, who tried to strangle him. He lost consciousness twice, they threw him against the walls of the offices and injected a substance supposedly for him to recuperate.

“[…] Now more than ever I stand by my slogan “I will not shut up, and I will not leave." I know that what the tyranny is preoccupied with is that I go away, or continue walking, and being told "Today you are more at risk than ever, " because if I was accused of being the instigator of the ads, well I will continue being the instigator, because information is vital in the fight, and if they demand freedom for the five, I'm within my rights to demand freedom for Ivan (Fernandez Depestre), (Armando)  Sosa Fortuny, freedom for Ciro Alexis Casanova Pérez. If they think that stealing from me in my house will break me, then take me back there, apply it again, knock the air out of me again and murder me because today more than ever I scream " Boitel and Zapata Live” and all that I know how to shout,” added Antúnez, leader of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance Front

 Between 9 and 13 June 2014, dozens of human rights activists were arrested in various parts of the island. At the time of writing this press release activists remain missing in Santa Clara Luis Enrique Santos Caballero and Yandis Martín Peraza who were detained on June 12, 2014. And Manuel José Guerra Cruz, detained in Santa Cruz del Sur. Front activist Ciro Alexis Casanova Pérez who had been detained since June 6, 2014 and was also sentenced to house arrest was released in the evening hours of yesterday, June 12.

Audio of the declarations of Antúnez statements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U03fcgS8zS4&list=UU_03S3mllvDLTufpvuL5XKA&feature=share

 

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