“If you convince your daughter to stop what she’s doing, then we’re going to solve your housing problems and the operation you need,” two State Security agents told Maricelis Cambara, the mother of Laritza Diversent, director of the Cubalex Legal Information Center, this Thursday.
Cambara has a physical disability due to a childhood accident and has lost mobility in her left leg. According to officials, they have the authority to provide her with surgery to improve her quality of life and alleviate her pain.
State Security agents "suggested" that she interfere in her daughter's work. If she succeeded, they promised her a series of perks, in addition to medical care, which is supposedly public in Cuba and to which everyone should have guaranteed access. They also promised that the mostly verbal attacks she has suffered from her neighbors in recent years would cease.
Finally, the political police assured her that only if Diversent abandoned her work as a human rights defender would they allow her to reunite with her daughter. Paradoxically, it was the same political police who, in 2017, forced the Cubalex team into exile, without the possibility of returning to their country, after raid the organization's headquarters and threaten its members with jail.
During the meeting with Cambara, the agents chose to disguise their harassment as "blackmail" and "soften" the exchange, unlike what happened last year. In August 2021, one of the agents who visited her this time, along with another officer, implicitly threatened her.
At that time, Cambara, 63 years old, She was warned that even she could be judged for her daughter's work. At the same time, they pressured her with threats to intercept Diversent in the United States or another country and bring her to Cuba to face trial. At that time, Cambara was with her ailing mother, who died a few days later. And now, once again, regime agents are exploiting a vulnerable situation to attack her, as her brother was diagnosed with dementia three days ago.
The officers told Cambara that they would visit her again to find out her daughter's response.
Regarding this, the director of Cubalex stated to CubaNet She claims that State Security is using her mother to pressure her. Apparently, they are trying to stifle the organization's legal advisory work, as well as its influence in international forums to raise awareness of human rights violations in Cuba.
“This convinces me that we must continue doing the work because we must be doing something right. If they weren't worried about Cubalex, they wouldn't be harassing a 63-year-old woman with a disability,” the lawyer told CubaNet.
The lawyer made it clear that she does not negotiate or yield to the Cuban dictatorship or its repressive apparatus. “Cuvalex’s work transcends me. I am here to lead, but I am not the entire organization. It goes without saying that I will not use my leadership position to force the organization to back down through blackmail,” she stated.
“If I resign tomorrow so that my mother can be left in peace, Cubalex will continue to exist and work, which is what Cuba needs,” he concluded.
*This article was originally published in Cubanet