: Three members of the Beirut family spent Christmas behind bars in Cuba, locked away for taking part in unprecedented protests against a communist regime notoriously intolerant of dissent.
The family's ordeal started on July 11 when Exeynt Beirut, 41, was detained in Guantanamo in Cuba's east on the first day of protests against harsh living conditions and government repression. Fredy Beirut's ex-wife, 59-year-old Zoila Rodriguez, said he was arrested the same day, on his way home by motorcycle.
With 158 others, the father and daughter were charged with sedition, according to the Cubalex rights group. Cubalex said dozens of people were injured during the protests of July 11 and 12, and 1,355 were detained, of whom 719 remain behind bars.Since then, the government has arrested hundreds more in a bid to instill fear and suppress dissent, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report.“My daughter and my husband started for the crime of public disorder, which was changed to sedition,“ said Rodriguez, who now splits her time between prison visits and caring for Katia’s nine-year-old son.
“He started recording to send his father the video,“ she told AFP by telephone from Ecuador, where she now lives.His mother said Rodriguez told her by telephone that “they have ended my life.” He will be 66 when he gets out.The legal process has been plagued by violations of due process, she said, without independent defense lawyers and trials held behind closed doors.
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