#CaptiveNationsWeek Recent Crimes of the Castro Regime: Sirley's Story

The violence and killings continue in Cuba

Sirley Ávila León following May 2015 machete attack

 The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation today premiered the Witness Testimony of Sirley Ávila León who was the victim of a Castro regime engineered machete attack in May of 2015 while observing Captive Nations Week. Last week the former regime official turned dissident testified before Congress. Below is the video made public today and an excerpt of the text of the Congressional testimony.


 
Congressional testimony posted on the Victims of Communism blog:

Because of my work and my demands in favor of reopening the school, I began to be accused of being a leader, and the families of the farmers in my area began to receive threats that their school-aged children would be taken away from them. I was threatened and repeatedly repressed by government officials, and in Havana I was even expelled from the Council of State and threatened with being accused of threatening State Security.

All this is what led me, on September 8, 2012, to denounce the regime’s human rights violations against the farmers and the people in general from the island itself, by means of the broadcaster Radio Martí. From that moment onwards, I was a victim of several attempts on my life, attempts to eliminate me physically, and other acts of vandalism against my farm, my animals and my property, all organized by the regime and its political police as part of its attempt to get rid of me. A young woman, Yudisleidy López Rodríguez, alerted me to the fact that the political police had offered highly dangerous common criminals rewards for murdering me. She was killed on September 26, 2014 for publicly decrying an attack on me in which my bed was set on fire during the early morning. Her murder was covered up as a crime of passion.

On May 24, 2015, I was attacked in my home by Osmani Carrión, who was sent by State Security to kill me. I am sure he was sent by the political police because I later discovered that he was a highly dangerous common prisoner who had been granted parole only days before attacking me. He attacked me with a machete, severing my left hand and mutilating my right arm and both knees. He did not cut off my head thanks to the presence of a child at the scene of the events and thanks to God who protected my life so that I could be here today and offer my testimony. In the days before the attack the regime had started a rumor that I had sold the farm and had left the area so that the neighbors would not be concerned about my physical disappearance.

23 year old murdered in 2014 after warning human rights defender