Cuba says more than 700 charged over anti-government protests

Cuban officials say more than 700 people who took part in anti-government protests last year have been charged with crimes including sedition, vandalism, theft and public disorder.

The public prosecutor’s office said 172 people had already been tried and convicted, without giving details.

Families and activists have criticised the trials as unfair, and say the sentences are disproportionate.

Hundreds of people were arrested after the protests, the largest in decades.

Thousands demonstrated across the Communist-run island last July to voice anger over food and medicine shortages, price increases and the government’s handling of the pandemic.

The statement by the public prosecutor’s office is the first official confirmation of the trials. In total, 710 people faced charges, it said, with most of them being held in detention as they await the trials.

The accused include 55 people aged 16-18, as people in Cuba can be prosecuted as adults from the age of 16.

The update came after a number of complaints by families and activists in recent weeks about the lack of transparency of the mass trials and the lengthy prison terms being given.

From July 2021: thousands join rare anti-government protests in Cuba

Justicia 11J, a human rights group, says penalties for dozens already sentenced, including for sedition, have ranged from four to 30 years in jail.

Luis Aguilar said his 21-year-old son, Walnier Luis, had been sentenced to 23 years in jail accused of sedition. “We’re devastated,” he told BBC News Mundo last month. “It’s a disproportionate sentence. And our hands and feet are tied because there is no-one we can turn to”.

The prosecutor’s office said those accusations were “manipulations of public opinion”, and that it had “verified compliance with the rights and constitutional guarantees of due process” under Cuban law.

“The right to defence was guaranteed, lawyers presented evidence and had access to the case files,” the statement said, adding that sedition charges related “to the level of violence demonstrated”.

 

Unauthorised public gatherings are illegal in Cuba and protests are rare. The demonstrations were largely peaceful although some people targeted police vehicles and looted some state-owned shops.

Cuba blames US sanctions for the problems that sparked the protests, and previously alleged that the demonstrations had been financed and instigated by US-based groups.

On Twitter, the US embassy in Havana criticised the “disproportionate sentences against peaceful and innocent youth”, saying: “They [Cuban authorities] cannot crush the people’s demands for a better future.”

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The European Union has strongly criticised the Ugandan authorities for rearresting the novelist, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, moments after a court had ordered his release on bail.

The European Union has strongly criticised the Ugandan authorities for rearresting the novelist, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, moments after a court had ordered his release on bail.

His lawyer said plain-clothed men grabbed the author as soon as he stepped out of prison on Tuesday.

The EU statement described the action as a clear disrespect to the rule of law and called for Mr Rukirabashaija’s immediate release.

He was arrested in December after making unflattering remarks about President Yoweri Museveni and his son on social media.

In 2020 the author was interrogated over whether his book The Greedy Barbarian was about Mr Museveni.

He said he was tortured whilst in detention.

Last year won the Pen Pinter Prize for an international writer of courage.

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River sweeps away VIP entourage in Mozambique

A VIP entourage in Mozambique was swept away in a river in western Mozambique as Tropical Storm Ana batters the country.

The governor of Tete province and Tete city’s mayor were returning from surveying damage wrought by the storm when the four cars in their convoy were whipped away by the River Rovubwe – though they were rescued along with most of the other passengers.

However, three people, including a journalist, are still missing.

At least 15 people in Mozambique have died across the country as a result of the storm, relief authorities say.

Tete province has been worst affected. Six people, including children, have died there – most of them after being crushed by falling walls.

The city of Tete has been disconnected from Moatise district after the bridge on River Rovubwe, a tributary of the major Zambezi River, collapsed.

Ana first hit the north of the country on Monday and has left a trail of destruction that includes homes, hospitals, schools, electricity pylons and bridges.

Although the tropical storm has dissipated, meteorologists say heavy rains, strong winds and thunderstorms will continue in central and northern regions.

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