by Frances Martel
Communist state security officials in Camagüey, Cuba, detained and interrogated seven-year-old Katherin Acosta Peña on Thursday regarding her mother, dissident Marisol Peña Cobas, who faces charges of corruption of youth for insufficiently indoctrinating Acosta into communism.
Peña — who spent a month in solitary detention after joining the July 11, 2021, anti-communist protests – revealed in late March that Cuban authorities had arrested her for the crime of “acts against the normal development of minors” because she refused to teach her daughter to love the Castro family and its figurehead president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Peña is currently out on bail.
Her husband, José Luis Acosta Cortellán, is also an anti-communist dissident and facing criminal charges for “disobedience,” a crime often used to persecute those who disagree with the regime on the island.
The interrogation of seven-year-old Acosta Peña is the latest documented incident of state intimidation and abuse against minors. The Castro regime has increased its persecution of children, particularly girls, since the outburst of dissent in 2021. Detentions, trials, and sentencing of children to years in prison under adult legal codes has become increasingly common, as has police abuse against girls.