Cuba protests: They dared to protest last July. Now these Cubans are facing 30 years in jail

In the town of Cárdenas, a two-hour drive east of Havana, the place Vázquez lives, a whole lot poured onto the streets to denounce the continual shortages and a scarcity of freedoms. One of them was Vázquez's husband, Daniel Joel Cárdenas Díaz.Vázquez mentioned her husband took half in the protests exterior a state-owned gasoline station close to their house, however was too afraid to enter the shop the place police say looting befell. When police arrived and commenced clashing with demonstrators, Vazquez mentioned her husband retreated again to the house they shared with their two-year previous twin boy and lady."I even said, 'You didn't grab anything for the kids -- not even a snack?'" she mentioned.Two days later, after police had quelled the protests throughout a lot of the island, Vázquez mentioned that police and Cuban "black beret" particular forces appeared exterior the couple's house and commenced battering down the door.Vázquez managed to file two temporary movies together with her cellphone as police pressured their means into the house, weapons drawn. She says she hid the cellphone between her legs to hold it from being taken and sheltered together with her younger kids as police fired at her husband. She mentioned that one of many rounds grazed the again of his head."When I saw him on the floor they were hitting him with a baton," she mentioned. "He was on hurt on the floor covered in blood, in a huge pool of blood. I thought he was dead."While the video Vazquez took exhibits a pool of blood on the ground of her house, CNN was not ready to independently affirm the extent of her husband's accidents. In a 3rd video taken after police took her husband away, Vázquez exhibits the blood on the ground and cries to her neighbors who've gathered at her entrance door, "They have destroyed my house!"Vázquez mentioned she believes police raided their home as a case of mistaken id. She mentioned that police first accused her husband of serving to to overturn a automobile in entrance of the headquarters of the town's communist social gathering.Vazquez mentioned her husband was not concerned with that incident.CNN has reached out to the federal government for remark.

After the harrowing video Vázquez took was aired by the worldwide press, Cuban-state run media launched photos of Cárdenas being calmly being questioned by police to refute what they referred to as "fake news" experiences that he had been critically wounded. The nationwide information program additionally confirmed safety digicam video that state media mentioned confirmed Cárdenas exterior the gasoline station after it had been broken.In December, Cárdenas was tried and convicted of sabotage and public dysfunction. He now faces a 15-year sentence in jail, Vázquez mentioned."These people didn't kill anyone, they didn't put bombs," Vázquez mentioned. "They threw rocks and asked for liberty, that was all. And they are being sentenced to more than 20 years in prison." According to an announcement launched by Cuban prosecutors, 790 folks have been charged for his or her involvement in the protests, with 172 folks already convicted. The trials are doubtless the most important mass trials to happen in Cuba since Fidel Castro took energy in 1959 and presided over televised trials of a whole lot of officers of the deposed Batista regime. Despite widespread requires amnesty for the July protesters, the federal government has vowed to harshly punish those that took half in the spontaneous rebellion."It has been corresponded to us to judge those who, acting as pawns of the subversive onslaught and attempted destabilization by the enemies of the revolution, have committed vandalism (and) violent aggression against authorities and officials," Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz mentioned at a authorities ceremony in January attended by the Minister of Justice, judges and different high-ranking officers, in accordance to the state-run media.

But human rights observers say lots of the accused protestors haven't had sufficient entry to legal professionals or been ready to mount a protection as they face decades-long jail sentences."This is a level of massive, systematic criminalization of demonstrators that we have very rarely seen in Latin America in recent decades," Juan Pappier, a senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch, instructed CNN. "It's very clear the message the Cuban government is trying to convey is that what happened in July is absolutely forbidden and cannot happen again." In a short cellphone name from El Guatao, the ladies's jail in Havana the place she is being held, protestor Mackyani Yosney Román Rodríguez decried the "awful" circumstances of her incarceration. Román mentioned she was arrested in July after clashes with police, whom she blamed for inflicting the violence in the working-class Havana neighborhood of La Guïnera the place she lived."It was terrible, the police arrived and just started shooting," she mentioned. Román, 24, mentioned she is charged with an extended record of crimes, together with sedition, and faces 25 years in jail. Two of her brothers additionally face prolonged jail sentences for allegedly participating in the protests, she mentioned. CNN has reached out to the federal government for remark. The protests -- and now the trials of a whole lot of protestors -- mark a earlier than and after in the island's historical past for a lot of Cubans.

"When will our kids see him again? When they are adults," Marbelis Vázquez Hernández mentioned from her new home, a easy construction produced from cement blocks on a tough, dust highway that she moved to together with her kids following her husband's arrest. She mentioned she was too traumatized by seeing police beat her husband to stay in their previous house. Even although it appears doubtless her husband will spend years in jail, Vázquez mentioned she is going to attraction his case and proceed to advocate for his launch. She says she is not going to be intimidated by the federal government's marketing campaign towards the protesters."I am not afraid, they have made me stronger," she mentioned.