Diobel Sevilla Martínez
* 1979
-
“I believe that what has happened with ‘San Isidro Movement’ [an active artistic opponent movement in Havana], well, if all Cubans did what has been done there…I think that this communist Government is so united, so pending. What happens is that the Government feels comfortable with all the power. It is necessary for the people of Cuba, for the opposition, to unite. ‘Do you think this is moment to take advantage and come out to the streets?’ I think the time is right now. I believe that now is the opportune moment to massively summon the whole world and come out to the streets to protest peacefully, I think it is the right moment to take over the streets in Cuba.”
-
“I managed to obtain a license for driving a truck, but which one the Court did not want to accept. I decided to go to the State Security Office, and I requested, well I had an interview with the Chief of the Confrontation Department, what was his name? ‘The actual? The current one is, now there is Victor.’ With Victor yes, I think it was Victor. I told him that I was not going to work on that thing they forced me, to clean the streets. He replied to me: ‘Do not worry, calm down, keep working as a truck driver, we are going to take care of that.’ And they never bothered me again in this issue. I could continue working until I finished my sanction and I no longer work for the Government.”
-
“I was invited by the opposition to the Czech Republic, so I traveled to study there, I was studying there for a month, psychology, human rights and all these things. After returning to Cuba from the Czech Republic, the Cuban Government accused me and detained me, insisting that I had an unsolved delinquency for an attack on the state, they accused me of a state attack, requesting nine years in a prison for me. Let me tell you that after I got back from the Czech Republic, I participated at some opponent meeting at the house of Abel López Pérez [Cuban dissident], from where I went home and they came for me to my house, from there I was transferred just in flip-flops and in T-shirt straight to the prison, without any court. Without stopover, I was transferred from my home directly to the prison.”
-
“The threats were always present, all the time. Right there, in front of my house, I always had someone from the State Security watching me. When I moved, when I step the street, for example I went to the corner of the street, he followed me, he was behind me. It did not matter if I went for a walk around the block, he was one step behind me all the time. It was even disrespectful, I could not talk to my mother through the portal of the main door, he was so close to me, we did not have any privacy, he was listening to our conversation. I had to advert him to leave me alone on several occasions.”
-
Full recordings
-
Cuba, 09.12.2020
(audio)
duration: 01:04:05
Full recordings are available only for logged users.
“I have to do something for freedom in Cuba - something that motivates me to face the communist government every day.”
Diobel Sevilla Martínez is a rapporteur and human rights activist in Cuba, pursuing his desire for a free and democratic Cuba. Under his father’s orders, Diobel forcibly entered the military service and later the military army, where, due to his disobedience and rebellion, he was imprisoned and punished. In 1996, he left the military service and started to work in the agricultural sector as a driver. In 2003, he joined the opposition movement, the “November, 30 Movement – Frank País” [Movimiento 30 de noviembre – Frank País], and later, the “Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy” [Movimiento Cubano de Jóvenes por la Democracia]. In 2016 he participated in an international seminar in the Czech Republic dedicated to human rights defenders. Due to his participation, he was sanctioned in an arbitrary trial by the Cuban Government for four years in a Correctional Facility with Internment. Diobel faces frequent arrests, interrogations, and constant persecution by State Security. He resides in the eastern part of the country, in the province of Guantanamo.