About the Beating of Ana Luisa Rubio - An Obligatory Reflection

About the Beating of Ana Luisa Rubio: An Obligatory Reflection
Posted on September 15, 2013

Ana Luisa Rubio, a censored and dissident Havana actress, received a
beating outside her home on the afternoon of Friday, 6 September, that
caused multiple contusions on her face, head and the rest of her body. A
few minutes later I received her telephone call in Artemesia: I heard
her terrified voice trying to tell us, but barely able to give any details.

Ana Luisa then received the supportive visit of several friends, and
that night was accompanied by Antonio Rodiles and his wife Ailer to the
emergency room at the Manuel Fajardo Hospital, where she received
medical attention and a certificate of her injuries was drafted. That
same day she made the relevant police report, for the umpteenth time, to
bring charges against the aggressors.

It was impossible for me to travel at that time — transport to Havana at
that hour is virtually nonexistent — and as I had a 24 shift on
Saturday, I was only able to visit her on Sunday morning. It was not
until I saw the extensive traumatic bruising around her left eye, in the
corner of the mouth on that side, still swollen, as well as on other
places on her body, that I realized the magnitude of the aggression.

Then Ana told me that that afternoon some kids, innocent lures,
repeatedly rang her doorbell — which, she said, was consistent with a
history of provocations that she has been suffering for years, and has
reported a dozen times without that law enforcement authorities doing
anything. When she answered the door an outrageously angry woman
neighbor rushed her ready for action, followed by a stranger and in
seconds there were several men, also unknown to her, who joined in the
beating. The modus operandi said it all. The images speak for
themselves. The impunity confirms all suspicions that State Security was
involved.

Now, the obligatory reflection of this Cuban who was not an eyewitness
to these events and which I will try to discuss as objectively as
possible. To not get suspicious:let's suppose it was the unheard of case
of a neighbor, truly outraged, inexplicably seconded completely
viciously by various strangers, men and women included. Would it not be
a case of assault against the person,recognized as a crime in the
existing Penal Code and therefore punishable?

Why, then, shouldn't the authorities act vigorously to enforce the law,
arrest the main aggressor, who lives a few doors from Ana Luisa — and
expose the guilty? Honestly, I feel that this is a very remote
possibility if we consider that the attack was consummated on a woman
who despite her vulnerable nature has dared to challenge the absolute power.

I am completely certain that if, the attacked had been anyone other than
that "uncompromising revolutionary" regardless of the reasons, Ana Luisa
would already be ready for sentencing. But in this case something
happens that can not be ignored: casually insist several days before — I
insist it was casually, not to get too suspicious — in the afternoon of
August 24, Ana had undertaken a one-person public act of protest in the
Plaza of the Revolution, and that it does explain a lot.

So as I see it: as long as this is a country where there is a separation
of powers and the Prosecutor allows such abuses; a country where the
police authority, far from ensuring the safety of the person, is
congenial in complicity with the oppressors; as long as this a country
without a committed press, able to submerge itself in a sterile
catharsis, but never risk a finger on the burning sore; as long as State
Security and the Communist Party arrogate to themselves the power to
organize the notorious rallies of repudiation and infamous beatings —
denigrating, not for the alleged victims, but for those who perpetrate
them; as long as freedom of opinion and association are constantly
violated and fear corrodes the dignity of man; as long as there are
cowards capable of taking advantage of the helplessness of women like
Ana Luisa, nothing, absolutely nothing in this suffering country has
changed.

13 September 2013

Source: "About the Beating of Ana Luisa Rubio: An Obligatory Reflection
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