Between 3,000 and 5,000 Cubans have been found by the dictatorship's courts to be "pre-criminal social dangers," human rights activists Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz told Miscelaneas de Cuba in a recent interview.
Those found to be social dangers, including many political opponents of the regime, have been sentenced to prison terms of as long as 4 years.
"All of them are technically innocent because by definition they have not committed any crime," said Sanchez, head of the un-official Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
Perhaps only George Orwell could completely understand what that means, but Human Rights Watch earlier this month provided a good definition as part of its report on repression in Cuba under Raúl Castro:
The Criminal Code defines “dangerousness” as “the special proclivity of a person to commit crimes, demonstrated by conduct that is observed to be in manifest contradiction with the norms of socialist morality.” In other words, “dangerousness” is a pre-criminal state in which a person’s behavior suggests that he or she is of the type likely to commit a crime in the future. This behavior may manifest itself in habitual drunkenness, drug addiction, or “antisocial behavior.”When “dangerousness” is applied to persons who voice dissent, it is most commonly for exhibiting “antisocial behavior.”
Orwell predicted this when he conjured up the notion of "thought crime" for his novel, "1984," with a dictator reserving for itself the right to determine who might pose a threat to the dictatorship, even if they have never done anything wrong, because of what they believe or because with whom they associate.
The Castro dictatorship has perfected it as a tool of repression.
Also in the interview, Sanchez describes the efforts of the commission, which has 10 members, to monitor the human rights situation on the island, especially in the Castro gulag. According to Sanchez, within the past two weeks, there has been a spike in repressive acts towards younger opponents, like bloggers Yoani Sanchez and Claudia Cadelo.
"We have a lot of work because as you know, the Cuban government violates all the rights — civil, political, economic and cultural," Elizardo Sanchez said.
You can listen to the interview here.
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