Taking extreme steps toward Cuban protesters, the court has ordered up to 20 years of sentence to the active members. The group of protesters was the one who had reportedly been accused of taking part in demonstrations across the island in July.
Till now, 20 defendants who were sentenced in the eastern province last month were convicted after trial on charges of sedition. There are hundreds of other people who have been part of the protests awaiting the verdict of trials.
Last year on July 11 and 12, hundreds of thousands of protesters were seen on streets across Cuba protesting for the shortage or unavailability of basic things such as low salaries and power outages. It was one of the largest protests that the country witnessed in a decade.
One of the victims of this atrocious behavior by the legal system as well as the government was Mailyn Rodríguez whose husband has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. She said that the decision is terrible and people have been extremely affected by it.
“The prosecution requests were too high and the sentences horrific,” she added while talking to the media. She also explained that the relatives of the 20 detainees were summoned to the court on Monday to hear the verdict and it was followed by the trial in January this year.
Cuban authorities have been evidently strict on the civilians. They have refrained from revealing the exact number of arrests that they made but various activist groups have revealed that there have been over 1,300 arrests during the time of the arrest.
Last year in August, officials reported 23 trials of 67 defendants, and the charges were tagged as minor but they received critical punishments.
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