Cuba Maintains Capital Punishment to "Deter and Intimidate"

Aware that only the use of terror and force keeps it in power, the Cuban regime makes it clear that if necessary, it will not hesitate to kill.

HAVANA TIMES – Inflation, misery, the lack of medicine, and power outages, which were the triggers for previous demonstrations, are worsening daily in Cuba. Given the possibility that these protests may occur again, the regime has threatened the death penalty for those who participate in demonstrations considered “illegal.”

Through the television program Hacemos Cuba, the Communist Party leadership sent a clear message: they will not relinquish power and are prepared to repress and eliminate anyone who threatens their absolute control. Aware that only the use of repression and force keeps them in power, they have made it clear that if necessary, they will not hesitate to kill.

In an article published in the Spanish newspaper ABC, Cuban journalist Camila Acosta commented that in the mentioned program, “several senior officials from the Ministry of the Interior and the Justice system justified the police actions, which usually repress popular discontent strongly, in addition to warning about the legal consequences for those who participate in them.” Among the mentioned crimes, there is “sedition,” used against those who promote or participate in mass protests and “disturb the socialist constitutional order.” Sanctions range from 10 to 30 years of imprisonment, life imprisonment, or even the death penalty in exceptional cases.

Acosta notes that the military’s threats and statements from the Cuban justice system representatives occur a month after the protests in the east of the country, the largest since July 11, 2021. Hundreds of citizens, mainly in Bayamo and Santiago de Cuba, took to the streets peacefully on March 17th and 18th, shouting “electricity and food,” “freedom,” and “homeland and life.”

One of the participants in the television program, Colonel Hugo Morales Karell, expressed that these popular demonstrations are encouraged by supposed terrorists based in the United States, aiming to attack authority and create an atmosphere of violence to delegitimize the government. According to the official, these plans are intended to provoke an excessive police response, which can be used on social media to “demonstrate a failed government and a false police brutality.”

Morales also tried to refute accusations of police abuse and violence against unarmed citizens, labeling them as part of supposed “unconventional warfare plans” to create a pretext to accuse Cuba. Recently, the government website Razones de Cuba said that protests are expected on the island this coming summer and accused the US government of preparing sabotage focused on the national electrical system to create popular discontent and “heat up the streets.”

What the summer could bring

For his part, Otto Molina Rodríguez, president of the Criminal Chamber of Cuba’s Supreme Court, stated that promoting or participating in protests aimed at “overthrowing the powers and the government… does not only result in public disorder but aims to subvert our rule of law and social justice state, to fulfill their goals of colonizing us.” In its article 121, the Official Gazette of Cuba explains that those who “disturb the socialist constitutional order” may face the charge of sedition, which in its paragraph “A” establishes that it will be punished “with imprisonment from ten to thirty years, life imprisonment, or death, if the crime is committed in exceptional situations, disaster, affects state security, during severe public disorder, or in a military zone, using weapons or exercising violence.”

Morales also tried to refute accusations of police abuse and violence against unarmed citizens, labeling them as part of supposed “unconventional warfare plans” to create a pretext to accuse Cuba. Recently, the government website Razones de Cuba stated that protests are expected on the island this summer and accused the US government of preparing sabotage focused on the national electrical system to create popular discontent and “heat up the streets.”

Between 1959 and 2003, thousands of Cubans were executed by firearms, most of them in the early years of the dictatorship, with their crimes consisting of opposing the Castro regime. In 2003, it was last applied against three young Cubans who hijacked a boat to try to reach the United States, though they did not cause any fatalities. Since then, it has been on moratorium, but the threat and legal justification for using the death penalty still exists and gains weight in scenarios of massive anti-government protests. It is worth noting that in the more than six decades that the Cuban dictatorship has remained in power, it had never before faced such widespread citizen rejection.

In her work, Acosta also notes that “capital punishment has been used as a persuasive mechanism, and in the new Penal Code, in effect since December 1, 2022, far from being eliminated, the number of crimes that include death by firing squad as punishment has increased.” While in the previous code there were 20, in the current code that is still in force, there are 24 crimes punished with capital punishment, most of which are violations against state security. This, Acosta asserts, “legally allows the regime to physically eliminate even political opponents, all those human rights activists and dissidents demanding a change in the system and a democratic transition.

The 2019 constitution declares the socialist system as ‘irrevocable’ and the Communist Party of Cuba as the only legally recognized party and the leading and superior force of society.”

Source: Havana Times, cubaencuentro.com, April 30, 2024

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