Cuba: Free Graffiti Artist
| Publisher | Human Rights Watch |
| Publication Date | 30 November 2016 |
| Cite as | Human Rights Watch, Cuba: Free Graffiti Artist, 30 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58406af24.html [accessed 22 May 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
Cuban authorities should order the immediate release of Danilo Maldonado Machado, the graffiti artist known as "El Sexto," Human Rights Watch said today. Police arrested him after he posted a video of himself celebrating Fidel Castro's death on social media.
On November 26, 2016, hours after Castro's death, Maldonado posted on Facebook a video of him painting Se Fue (he's gone) on the Havana Libre hotel and asking people to "come out into the streets" and "ask for freedom." The video was later widely broadcast on YouTube. Speaking on the phone from Havana, Maldonado's mother, Maria Victoria Macha, said that police stormed into her son's house, dragged him to a police station, beat him severely, held him incommunicado for three days, and still have him detained without charges – a wildly disproportionate response to a minor act of vandalism.
"Nobody should be arrested for expressing political views," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "And under no circumstances should anyone be held incommunicado without access to family and legal counsel."
Maldonado has long been a target of police harassment. In 2014, police arrested him for spray painting "Fidel" and "Raul" on the backs of two live pigs – for which he served 10 months in prison. In 2015 Amnesty International named Maldonado a prisoner of conscience.
Machado said that the police took her son to the Villa Marista state security prison, notorious in Cuba for holding political prisoners, and beat him so severely that it brought on an attack of asthma, from which he suffers. Only then – 72 hours after his arrest – was he allowed to contact her so that she could bring him an inhaler. The police did not tell her why they were holding her son and she has heard nothing from either her son or the police since, she said, except that police are threatening Maldonado with a charge of damaging state property.
Short-term arbitrary arrests of Cuban human rights defenders, independent journalists, and artists have increased dramatically in recent years. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an independent human rights group that the government views as illegal, received more than 7,900 reports of arbitrary detention from January through August 2016 – the highest monthly average in the past six years.
