With the unwavering support of President Obama, Cuba’s vicious apartheid dictatorship continues to ratchet up its violent repression. Talk about a war on women…
Cuban woman mutilated in deadly machete attack holds State Security responsible
Former People’s Assembly delegate pays high price to live free in Cuba
Sirley Ávila León, age 56, mother of two brutally attacked
What happened
Sirley Ávila León, age 56, was gravely wounded in a machete attack on May 24, 2015 at 3:00pm by Osmany Carrión who had been “sent by state security thugs” and that she is sure that the aggression “was politically motivated.” The attack was severe enough that she suffered deep cuts to her neck and knees, lost her left hand and could still lose her right arm. Although Carrión was the principle assailant, his wife threw her into the mud after he cut off her hand compounding the injury with infection. It was a coordinated attack. Sirley has not recovered from her injuries, her life hangs in the balance but she has been sent home in this critical state without the proper medication.
The 56 year old mother of two, small farmer and opposition activist has charged Cuban state security of being behind the deadly attack. She says that they are trying to be rid of her. Furthermore that prior to this attack some of her cows and pigs were attacked with machetes, which she then added “I reaffirm that this is something that was prepared against me for some time.”
Background
Sirley Ávila León, an ex-delegate of the People’s Assembly (Poder Popular) of Majibacoa, a relatively sparse area of Cuba did something highly unusual in Cuba that got her in trouble. She had represented her community not the dictatorship and been re-elected for three terms. She had gotten the government to establish an elementary school for the few students who lived there. Otherwise they would have had to travel several kilometers daily to get to a school. At the same time transportation in Cuba is also a complicated affair to get around. When in 2012 the regime wanted the school shut down and Sirley began a protracted struggle to keep the school open she was confronted initially by the refusal of anyone to meet with her or the state controlled press to report on what was happening. She broke a taboo when she appealed to the international media and then tried to run in the rubber stamp elections which she then lost after maneuvers by the regime.
