UNPACU activist arrested and threatened for failing to appear for a verbal summons from a police officer

In the morning hours of 24th February, the activist of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) María Bustamante Vélez was detained in front of the municipal prosecutor's office by the sector chief, Captain Gianny Clape Rodríguez of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR), under orders from the Department of State Security (DSE). The arrest was the result of the activist's failure to attend a verbal summons she had received from the PNR, which was notified to her in the middle of the public street and without any official document. The PNR officer told her that she had committed a crime of contempt for not attending the citation, she explained that she had not shown up because he had not given her an official document. The Officer, very uncomfortable with the response, told her that he had summoned her to tell her that she could not leave the municipality until after the 28th and that if she dared to disobey an order from the police she would be prosecuted. He also advised her to remember that she already had several warnings and not to play with her luck and "to look at herself in the mirror of her boss, this José Daniel Ferrer, who was already paying for all that she did”. The activist was detained for more than 2 hours until she was released after being warned and threatened with jail if she tried to leave the municipality.