From our ever-busy Bureau of Socialist Tolerance, Compassion, and Social Justice with some assistance from our Bureau of Thin-Skinned Leaders of Leftist Latrine American Military Juntas
All that Aroni Yanko García Valdés did was to post memes on social media that poked fun at the top three bosses of Castro, Inc. In related news, the United Kingdom is now imitating Castro, Inc. by arresting citizens for their politically incorrect posts on social media. Even worse, the new Labour government in the U.K. is also threatening to extradite and imprison U.S. citizens for committing the same “crime”on social media.
Watch out! This threat has also been aimed directly at U.S. citizen Elon Musk. So, the long arm of the Left is flexing its muscles. As the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz says as she is melting away, “what a world, what a world.”
Loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
The Municipal Court of Santa Clara sentenced Cuban Aroni Yanko García Valdés to a year and a half of imprisonment on Monday for posting a meme on Facebook featuring images of Miguel Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro, and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, as reported by the U.S. outlet Martí Noticias.
García Valdés, a nurse and father of three children, was found guilty of “aggravated contempt” after spending five months in prison.
According to Article 185.1 of the Penal Code, approved in Cuba in May 2022, contempt is punishable by “six months to one year of imprisonment or a fine of one hundred to three hundred quotas, or both.”
Article 185.2 specifies that the penalty is increased to one to three years of imprisonment if the offense is committed “against the President or Vice President of the Republic, the President of the National Assembly of People’s Power, other members of the Council of State or the Council of Ministers, deputies of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the President of the Supreme People’s Court, the Attorney General of the Republic, the Comptroller General of the Republic, or the President of the National Electoral Council.”
The prosecutor argued that posting a meme with images of Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro, and Marrero Cruz constituted “a significant disrespect” towards figures of the regime, according to García Valdés’ wife, Yunisley Suárez Rodríguez, who spoke to Martí Noticias.
“The prosecutor said it was a great disrespect towards the figures of the revolution, constituting a crime of aggravated contempt, and that they would prosecute him accordingly, despite the lawyer’s denial that it was a crime of contempt,” Suárez Rodríguez explained. She also noted the significant presence of police and State Security agents.
“There were a lot of police officers and State Security agents outside. Only his family was allowed into the trial,” she recounted.
Suárez Rodríguez also expressed her intention to appeal her husband’s sentence, despite having little hope of overturning the decision or reducing the penalty.
“We will appeal to the fullest extent, but we know it will likely be the same. It took them about two and a half hours to deliberate a decision they had already made before the trial,” she said.
García Valdés was a nurse at the Maleza Polyclinic in Santa Clara until April 3. On that day, he responded to a summons at the Third Station of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) and was detained. He was then transferred to the State Security Crimes Unit and later sent to La Pendiente prison in Santa Clara under provisional detention.
With this sentence, García Valdés joins a growing list of Cubans who have been imprisoned for their social media posts.
In January, the Popular Municipal Court of Camagüey sentenced Aniette González to three years in prison for the alleged crime of “insulting national symbols” after she posted photos with the Cuban flag on Facebook, echoing the performance “The Flag Belongs to Everyone” by political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.