Anna Bensi and her mother convicted in Cuba for distributing police officer video
A Havana court found activist Anna Bensi and her mother, Caridad Silvente, guilty of distributing a video of a police officer. Both face two years of restricted liberty.
Havana court convicts activist and mother over police video on social media
Cuban content creator Anna Sofía Benítez, known as Anna Bensi, and her mother, Caridad Silvente, were found guilty by a court in the municipality of Havana East, according to larazon.es. Both could serve a sentence of two years of restricted liberty for recording and distributing on social media a video of a police officer who came to their home in March to deliver a summons.
"The court concluded that my mother and I were guilty of the offence and sentenced us each to two years of restricted liberty, and this really is an injustice," Bensi told the press after the hearing concluded, according to the EFE news agency.
Their lawyer, Roberto Ortega, explained to EFE that the court will issue the ruling in writing in approximately 15 days and stressed the difference between deprivation of liberty and restricted liberty. This second form, according to Ortega, "allows a normal life, but with the provisions and regulations established by law", among them a ban on leaving the country. The lawyer also indicated that the sentence can be appealed, although the decision rests exclusively with Bensi and her mother.
The Cuban Interior Ministry issued an extensive statement through state media and social networks, without explicitly referring to the trial, in which it warned that "a court case is not decided on social media" and stressed that "recording is not a crime, distributing without consent can be". The institutional note clarified that "what is being judged is not the act of recording, but the non-consensual distribution of the image", and described it as a "simplification" to claim that someone is tried for filming a government official. The statement also urged against "turning every case into a show" and maintained that freedom of expression "does not protect the exposure of another person's privacy".
On social media, activists, influencers and Cuban users both inside and outside the island expressed solidarity with Anna Bensi and rejected what they described as "censorship of freedom of expression". The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) denounced a "repressive operation by the Cuban regime" aimed at preventing independent journalists, activists and religious representatives from attending the trial.
Cuban-American congressmen María Elvira Salazar, Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Giménez also spoke out, denouncing that the Havana Government "continues to intimidate and silence those who dare to raise their voices".
Source: Google News CU — La Habana