Captured on video: Injured dissident physically mistreated and arrested by Cuban police

In a recent video recorded by dissident leader Jorge Luis García Pérez ‘Antúnez’ and published on the YouTube channel of the ‘Cuban Democratic Directorate’, one can see how peaceful dissident Segundo Rey Cabrera González is aggressively arrested by various State police officials and forced inside a vehicle- all of this while having an injured arm, also a product of police violence just days before.

Segundo Rey, a resident of Sancti Spiritus, located in Cuba’s central Villa Clara province, was on his way to the home of Antunez in the city of Placetas when he was arrested.  In the video, the dissident exclaims in pain, telling the officers that his arm is injured.  However, the police agents twist his arm and shove him against the vehicle anyway.  The injury on his arm was sustained days earlier in Sancti Spiritus when the activist was arrested and beaten by the political police alongside his brother, Aurelio, during the month of August. Police cordons arround the Placetas neighborhood where Antunez resides is constant (the same occurs with many other activists throughout the island) and each month arrests of dissidents trying to get to his home for a reunion or a simple visit are reported.

Segundo Rey Cabrera González is coordinator of the Cuban Pro-Human Rights Committee and has been an obstacle for the dictatorship with his activism in Sancti Spiritus, providing frequent reports of repression, opposition, and the nearly constant apparition of anti-government signs put up by everyday citizens in a growing wave of popular discontent in the country.

Directorio’s YouTube channel also recently published another video (shown above) in which activists holding a meeting at the home of dissidents Idael Perez Diaz and Santa Gonzalez Pedroso in Grua Nueva, Ciego de Avila, defending their right of displaying anti-regime signs in front of their home, when two State Security agents arrived and told them the signs had to be removed.  After the exchange of words, the dissidents started to publicly protest, shouting slogans like “Down with Fidel”, “We are Cuban too” and “down with hunger”.  The agents had no other option but to leave, without achieving their objective of taking down the signs.

Videos such as these demonstrate two things: the rising level of opposition in Cuba and the importance of having such audio-visual proof to show the world how Cubans live.

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