PINAR DEL RIO, January 20 (UPECI) - In a move that gives the phrase "speedy trial" an unprecedented meaning, the Cuban judiciary has rescheduled the appeal of independent journalist Víctor Rolando Arroyo from January 27th to the 24th.
January 14. Arroyo was sentenced on Friday to six months in jail for hoarding toys.
January 8. State Security agents searched Arroyo's home, finding 108 toys which he intended to distribute to poor children around Pinar del Río, in western Cuba, in commemoration of the feast of the Three Wise Kings. At this time, Arroyo had already distributed "over 100 toys,"
by his own reckoning. All the toys had been bought at the government's dollar stores with 200 dollars sent for the project, mostly from the United States and Canada.
January 12. On Wednesday afternoon, Arroyo's mother informed callers to his home: "He is out looking for a lawyer, because they just told him his trial comes up tomorrow."
January 13. On Thursday, with about 100 dissidents in the courtroom in a show of support, the authorities postponed the trial, stating that the appropiate files had not been handed over to the court by police. That night, someone slipped a summons under his door; the trial was set for 2 p.m. the
next day.
January 14. The next day, Friday, the trial was moved forward to 11 a.m., before witnesses Arroyo had planned to call arrived. He was given six months in jail and 72 hours to file an appeal, which Arroyo did on Tuesday the 18th.
In his appeal, Arroyo cites documents by the office of the National Prosecutor, which state that for the crime of hoarding to take place, under the Cuban penal code, (1) the goods must be intended for resale, and (2) they must be bought in the national, not in the dollar stores.
Amnesty International has declared Arroyo a "prisoner of conscience" and has started a campaign in his favor.
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