From our Bureau of Crimes That Only Exist in Socialist Utopias with some assistance from our Bureau of Socialist Tolerance and Social Justice
As reported in an earlier post this morning, cattle crimes are becoming more prevalent in Cuba. Naturally, this relatively sudden crime wave is linked to the island’s severe food shortage. People are starving, and some aren’t waiting for the government to dispense meat to them. Well, leave it to Castro, Inc. to link cattle crimes with dissidence. They have just nabbed a member of an opposition movement who is not a “cattle criminal” for the crime of simply knowing some people who are suspected of being cattle criminals. Unreal.
Loosely translated from Marti Noticias
The police in San Cristóbal, Artemisa, warned activist Alexander Martínez Sucen, the provincial delegate of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic (MONR), that he is under investigation for his meetings with “criminal elements” and for not having a formal job.
“On August 8, the Sector Chief came, invaded my home without permission, and took me to the station because I didn’t resist. They detained me for a few hours and told me that I had to report the next day, or I would be fined 1,000 pesos,” the activist told Martí Noticias.
“I went the next day. Several Sector Chiefs and a few police officers gathered and drafted a ‘Warning Act’ stating that I associate with people who are against the government, with people who kill cattle, with criminal elements. They also said they would monitor me for six months and that I had to find a job,” he explained.
In a conversation with Martí Noticias, local farmers lamented the police’s passivity regarding cattle thefts: “It’s a black market that’s not very large, and generally, it’s known who is selling the meat,” they said.
The legal advisory center Cubalex alerted on Facebook about the arbitrary nature of the activist’s detention.
“This all started because I protest against the government, I protest here in the town, I protested on July 11, and I upload videos [to social media] against the government. They are looking for a reason to put me in jail,” Martínez Sucen said.
Martínez Sucen worked as a pedicab driver for about eight years, but the fines imposed by authorities forced him to abandon the job and attempt to flee the island by sea. He was captured in the Bahamas and returned to Cuba.
The Opposition Movement for a New Republic, an organization based on the island that promotes street activism, currently has eleven members imprisoned for participating in the July 11 protests in different parts of Havana, Mayabeque, and Artemisa.
Five other members are in prison for political reasons.