“It was horrible,” summed up the activist Sayli González Velázquez the seven hours he was arrested and under interrogation Tuesday in Santa Clara, following a plainclothes officer of the state security physically assaulted her on the public highway to interrupt the direct he was doing and prevent him from continuing his march alone in solidarity with the artists and activists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel “Osorbo”, tried in Havana.
According to the activist, former coordinator of the independent civil society platform Archipiélago, “If the way that man treated me seemed violent to them, they would be horrified by the way the other man treated me”he said, referring to the images of the aggression of which he was a victim, which went viral.
In a direct through her facebook wall, González Velázquez identified the aggressor who grabbed her by the neck as an agent who calls himself Roly, but He insisted that this was not as violent as the one who calls himself Daniel.
“He is a despicable, violent, sexist being,” he said, recalling that this police officer state security He has assaulted her before.
On this occasion, she narrated, she was put in a police car and from there transferred to another civilian car, where Daniel “took me out of the police patrol in front of the agents, who do absolutely nothing.” The same individual applied a key to get her out of the car and introduce her to the police station where she was interrogated.
“I came down screaming in pain”he said regarding that scene, which occurred “in front of other MININT officers.” “They don’t care regarding sexist violence (…) they can do it in front of anyone and they will accept it”he said in reference to the agents of the repressive apparatus.
The repressors who interrogated her they threatened to charge her with contempt and defamation for calling the Cuban rulers terrorists. Instead, Sayli recalled, “all acts of repudiation are state terrorism.”
The activist said she had confronted the repressor Daniel: “I told him that he was a terrorist, that he was a fool. Whoever is capable of doing that to a person he doesn’t know simply because he thinks differently is capable of doing it to his mother. That’s what they count on: violent people, who have no scruples.”
During that confinement, the repressor “gave me regarding four quite strong slaps,” and a female agent present there justified it: “You’re asking for it,” Sayli said he told her.
“That’s how sexist the institutions that supposedly care for tranquility in this country are. (…) What bothers me the most is that they think it’s good and they justify it. (…) If this is the case with me, how will it be once morest those political prisoners who do not have the visibility that Sayli has? “He asked himself.
After seven hours of arrest, González Velázquez was released with a “verbal warning” following lifting another detention “for causing public disorder through my social networks,” the latter document that he rejected.
After being taken back to her home, the agents returned the phone with which she was directing when she was attacked and arrested. But this one didn’t work, Sayli said. As she later found out, “it had been put in water. The SIM card tray was wet,” she said.
