Activist detained and threatened for exercising freedom of expression

On November 5th, the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) activist Justo Elias Franco Jimenez, was detained by the captain of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR), Reinaldo Rodriguez, and by informants Braulio Martines and Leandris Navarro. The activist was detained when he was handing out printed materials in the streets of the neighborhood where he lives. When he was detained, he shouted anti-government slogans such as "Down with communism, down with dictatorship, long live human rights". He also shouted, "Long live the Patriotic Union of Cuba" and "Long live José Daniel Ferrer Garcia". The officer who arrested him saw that the activist would not shut up and called for the patrol car to come and pick up the activist. In the more than 72 hours that the activist was detained, he was subjected to all kinds of repressive and threatening methods, such as death threats, among others. In the more than three days that he was detained, the activist was interrogated by Major and Chief of Confrontation Alfredo Oliveros and by Lieutenant Colonel Lesnier Leyva. He always refused to say that he had been sent by someone to carry out this activity. He always said that what he had done was of his own free will and because he was the president of an opposition organization, and not because someone had sent him. After spending more than 72 hours under cruel interrogation, he was released, but not without first being officially warned for public disorder and enemy propaganda.