Amnesty International (AI) designates Professor Pedro Albert Sánchez of Prisoners Defenders (PD) as a prisoner of conscience and urges the German Government to intercede for its citizen detained in Cuba
14ymedio/EFE, Madrid, 8 July 2024 —On Monday, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) requested the acquittal of those convicted by Judge Melody González Pedraza, who is currently in a political asylum process in the United States. In a statement made public the same day OCDH — an NGO headquartered in Spain — reported on an interview with González Pedraza by Diario de Cuba, in which the judge herself claimed to have received instructions from the president of the Provincial Court of Villa Clara and the president of the Security Chamber to convict Andy Gabriel González Fuentes, Eddy Daniel Rodríguez Pérez, Luis Ernesto Medina Pedraza and Adain Barreiro Pérez.
All of them were sentenced by the Popular Municipal Court of Encrucijada, Villa Clara, which González Pedraza presided over, for the crime of attack. The first three were sentenced to four years in prison and the fourth to three years.
The Observatory believes that the judge’s statements give “new grounds for acquittal and revocation of the sentence”
“They gave me precise indications; I said that the defense lawyers had presented important evidence, especially from witnesses. But the order I received was that the evidence of the Prosecutor’s Office was sufficient and had more value. We had to maintain pre-trial detention and sanction them,” said the former official in her interview with the Madrid-based Cuban newspaper.
The Observatory believes that the Judge González Pedraza’s statements give “new reasons for acquittal and revocation of the sentence,” since “it is evident that it was not legal and just to pronounce a criminal sentence.”
The NGO’s report, with six recommendations, is addressed to the appellant appointed lawyers of the ruling of the Municipal Court of Crossroads, issued last January, and to the members of the Governing Council of the Provincial Court in Villa Clara, among other institutions.
“There was a violation of guarantees and fundamental rights to the detriment of those convicted, as well as the absence of a crime and serious judicial misconduct without the least minimum of evidence. We believe that there are sufficient elements for imminent release measures to be adopted in favor of the appellants, as a definitive and just measure,” says the OCDH.
Amnesty International urged the Government of the Island to release Pedro Albert Sánchez “immediately and unconditionally”
In addition, Amnesty International (AI) — an NGO based in London — designated Cuban professor and activist Pedro Albert Sánchez as a prisoner of conscience on Monday. It urged the Cuban Government to release him “immediately and unconditionally,” along with all the “unjustly imprisoned people” in the country.
The NGO stated that in December a judge revoked the sanction of “limitation of freedom” – the fulfillment of the sentence out of prison – that weighed against the activist for having participated in the massive anti-government protests of 11 July 2021 (’11J’).
The 68-year-old professor, who also suffers from cancer, had been sentenced to five years on charges of “contempt” and “public disorder.” Last November he was arrested when he tried to go to the headquarters of the European Union in Havana to deliver a letter to the High Special Representative of the European Union for Human Rights, Eamon Gilmore, who was in Cuba on a working v