14ymedio, Havana, 22 December 2023 — The independent platforms Alas Tensas and Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba (YSTC) confirmed this Friday a new femicide. The name of Misleidis Díaz, murdered on December 19 in Pinar del Río, is added to the painful record of femicides in 2023 on the Island, which already amounts to 85 cases.
According to the platforms, Díaz, 46, was murdered by her ex-husband in front of the four children they had in common in Entronque de Herradura, a town in the Pinar del Sur municipality of Consolación del Sur.
The activists also allege that the victim had reported violent treatment and death threats by the alleged aggressor to the police on previous occasions, but the authorities ignored her complaints.
The threats were so many and were so credible that four days ago Misleidis went to the PNR Unit to file a complaint.
“The threats were so many and they turned out to be so credible, that four days ago Misleidis went to the PNR Unit to make the complaint,” a source who claims to have known Díaz declared on social media. “They didn’t even draw up a report, they sent her back to her house,” she added, alleging that the authorities considered the attacker’s threats to be just “talk.”
On Thursday, the severity of violence against women on the Island has motivated a group of independent organizations and platforms to address an open letter to the Cuban Government. Their demands: that the State and the relevant institutions offer clear data on femicides and violence against women on the Island. The methods of the authorities, defined in the text as “patriarchal” and “authoritarian,” keep more people in danger of violence, specifically 16,116 Cuban women and girls, the activists denounced.
The document also highlights the constant efforts of these independent organizations to collect information on cases of femicides and violence against women, about which the State refuses to reveal official data or offer police collaboration.
The latest statistics presented by the authorities in this regard quantified 117 femicide murders on the Island in a period of three years, since 2020, while independent media and observatori