Frankfurt/Havanna, November 16, 2020 – During a peaceful sit-in strike in front of a police station, the well-known Cuban professor Omara Ruiz Urquiola was brutally beaten by a police motorcycle patrol on November 13th, as reported by the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR). On Facebook, she shared a video of the assault and showed the blood-smeared dress she had worn during the abuse.

Omara Ruiz demonstrated for the release of the Cuban democracy activist Denis Solis, who was arrested for publicly and peacefully standing up for another imprisoned democracy activist.

The Cuban, who is suffering from cancer, has been harassed for years and taken into collective punishment for her brother, biologist and environmentalist Ariel Ruiz Urquiola. She was expelled from the university because of her criticism of the regime.The Cuban authorities also deny an effective cancer treatment to Omara Ruiz. This refusal is the method of punishing the lack of loyalty to the government and intimidating other civil rights activists, criticizes the ISHR.

The exacerbated crisis in the Cuban economy, the lack of tourists because of Covid-19, and the ongoing problems of supplying the population with food and consumer goods have made the regime even more nervous. Any criticism is violently suppressed. In recent weeks, many Cuban activists have been arrested nationwide, according to the ISHR.