Threatened with Torture, Luis Felipe Rojas Affirms that He is Not Afraid
This Friday August 5th is the Day of Resistance in Cuba, and as is expected the regime has started a crackdown on dissidents who have participated in events commemorating this day or who are planning to take part within the next couple of days. The day before the resistance celebration, on August 4th, the activist/blogger/independent journalist Luis Felipe Rojas informed through his Twitter account that he had been cited by the political police for that same night in the police unit of his town, San German, in Holguin. “I’m expecting an arrest“, ended his Tweet. Hours after, Rojas was released but not before being threatened.
“They told me that they would apply all measures within their reach to impede any sort of actions which to us are peaceful activities but which they classify as ‘provocations’“, explains the dissident from Holguin. The detainment, according to Rojas, was “arbitrary” and its purpose was to prevent any intentions by the dissident to report and/or participate in events taking place on the 5th.
Among Cuban opposition members, the Day of Resistance was designated for the fifth of August in commemoration of ‘El Maleconazo’ which occurred on this day in 1994. On that day hundreds of everyday Cubans spontaneously took to the streets in Havana to demand their rights. Many believe that the dictatorship was shaking during that moment, in ways that perhaps they had not before.
17 years later the Cuban people continue demanding their inalienable rights. “(All throughout the island) there will be protest activities“, declares Luis Felipe, “What I mainly do is independent journalism, my work mainly consists of informing and denouncing what happens to dissidents and the Cuban people in general“. Rojas, author of the blog ‘Crossing the Barbed Wire‘, has suffered firsthand under the strict censorship of a regime which does not tolerate any form of dissent. In one of his most recent posts he details the long, difficult, and costly process which he, and most Cubans, must undergo to access the internet for just a few minutes. Regardless, he assures that he will be Tweeting and reporting during the Day of Resistance, also affirming that, “I will be in the streets as well, where I belong and and where my brothers in struggle have called me to be“.
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The Castro totalitarian Regime fears the People of Cuba.