OCDH records 416 repressive actions in February against the Cuban population

The Cuban regime carried out at least 416 repressive actions against the population in February, 149 of which were some kind of detention and 267 were other abuses, claimed the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH).

The abuses committed include the siege of homes (87), harassment (69), fines (36), citations (30), and threats (28), according to a statement published by the entity.

Women were the primary victims of repression so far in 2022, especially arbitrary arrests and some sort of house arrest.

"Our observers are increasingly sending us citizen complaints about the violation of social rights, which indicates that the situation has worsened and that people are less afraid to denounce. The repressive pattern continues," said the organization.

"In the midst of the tense economic situation, the Cuban government continues to devote enormous resources to repression against activists, with an eye on a new penal code that will make political penalties even harsher and which we denounced in Brussels last week in meetings with more than twenty politicians and officials," the statement continued.

Yaxys Cires, Director of Strategy for OCDH, told ADN America that "the persistence of this highly repressive climate was one of the urgencies that we presented last week to the MEPs of various tendencies and to the officials who received us in Brussels."

"We have asked to redouble our demands to the regime to respect human rights, especially the unconditional release of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. We also denounce that it is arming itself with a series of laws even more repressive than the current ones, as is the case of the Penal Code", added Cires.

Additionally, the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts (OCC) registered 207 protests in Cuba during February, of which 130 were politically and civilly motivated.

Seventy-three of the protests were directly related to the convictions of peaceful demonstrators in the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021, as well as allegations of torture and mistreatment in prisons.

Protests for economic and social reasons numbered 77 (37%). These were focused on the inflationary consequences of the so-called "Tarea Ordenamiento", shortages of basic necessities such as milk, labor rights, rejection of the freely convertible currency (MLC) stores, and citizen insecurity.