Cuba: A Campaign of Terror Against Damaris Moya Portieles/ #StandWithDamaris

capitolhillcubans

Damaris Moya Portieles is a Cuban democracy leader, who has been the victim of a brutal campaign of repression aimed at terrorizing her and her family for her peaceful opposition activities.

Last night, she was beaten unconscious in front of her two small children (a 2-year old boy and 6-year old girl) and taken away by Castro's secret police.

Damaris is a leader of the Central Opposition Coalition and of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights. These two organizations, led respectively by Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" and his wife Yris
Perez Aguilera, head a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience against Cuba's dictatorship.

For the past three years, Damaris has been harassed, physically beaten and arrested by the Castro regime's secret police on numerous occasions.

On one occasion in January 2013, Damaris was sexually violated during the arrest, when she was forcefully held down, stripped naked and had a pencil introduced into her genitalia.  The authorities claimed they were "searching for a cell phone."

Since August 4th, when Antunez and Yris Perez Aguilera left Cuba to begin their U.S. visit, the campaign of repression against Damaris has intensified dramatically. In their absence, the Cuban authorities seek to dismantle their organizations by violently targeting Damaris.

Thus, in the past month, the political police has forcefully broken into her home on three occasions and destroyed her belongings; her two small children have also been physically assaulted and arrested multiple times; her 6-year old daughter was sexually threatened by a secret police agent named Eric Francis Aquino Yera; and six "act of repudiation" have been organized against her home, a tactic employed by the Cuban authorities where mobs are brought in to hurl insults, throw debris and vandalize her home.

This campaign against Damaris is now systematic.  

Yet, she remains relentless.

#StandWithDamaris