From our Bureau of Great Moments in Socialist Social Justice
To whom do you complain about police abuse in a totalitarian socialist police state? That’s the big question a Cuban cuentapropista recently injured by police is asking.
Go ask the Marx Sisters. They will surely have an answer. Castrogonia is their idea of paradise.
Loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
Police abuses have increased in the last year in Cuba, with the strong presence of the Armed Forces and elements of the Ministry of the Interior in the streets, especially in Havana. Hundreds of complaints circulate on social networks, which also expose the levels of impunity for violent actions by police and military, against a citizenry that feels evicted by the country’s Justice structures.
The story of Andrés Guerra Quintana, 54, father of two minors and a teenager, exemplifies the excessive use of force and arbitrariness to impose “order” and laws that condemn the Cuban family to defenselessness.
On the night of March 20, while he was enjoying himself with his wife and three children, a Police officer appeared at the door of his home in Romerillo, Playa, with the excuse of an alleged complaint from neighbors about the volume of music .
“I asked him why he should turn down the music, if it was Saturday and it was barely 8:00 at night. I told him that I was simply having fun with my children, who have been locked up at home for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.” said Guerra Quintana, a self-employed worker who sells snow-cones.
The officer left, but about 15 minutes later he returned and asked Guerra Quintana again because of the volume of the music.
“He didn’t even realize that we had already taken it down. However, I got ready to call the nearby neighbor, the only one who could have complained, and that I was sure it had not been, because we got along very well for years. The padlock on the gate and I looked out, but my neighbors [a young couple] were not there. Just as I was about to close the door and put the padlock on, other policemen who were in hiding rushed me because I hadn’t even realized they were there there “, related Guerra Quintana.
According to the testimony of his wife and his son, the entire police outrage began inside the home. Guerra Quintana did not resist or return a single blow from the police officers, the family said.
“My daughters were screaming in panic, my son pulling their hair out and, when he came out to try to defend me, one of the officers was going to hit him with the baton, but my wife got in the way telling him that he was a minor.”
Finally, amid the screams and despair of his children and his wife, Guerra Quintana was cut down, handcuffed and taken to a police car that was already stationed on the street corner.
“While inside the patrol, the officer who came forward for the alleged complaint yelled at another of the officers that if I opened my mouth he would give me a tromp and pull out my teeth. The patrol did not go directly to the Police station But first they went to have a picnic. All that time, in addition to being handcuffed, I had the knee of one of the officers on my back. “
Continue reading HERE in Spanish