Havana (AFP) – A Cuban court on Friday sentenced troubadour Fernando Becquer to five years of correctional labor without internment for the crime of “lewd abuse,” local organizations and media reported.
“Declared guilty Fernando Bécquer, for the crime of lewd abuse,” the ruling Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) said on Twitter. It stressed that the 51-year-old man, well known in university circles in the country, will be able to appeal this sentence “in second instance”.
For its part, Muchacha magazine, which is published by the Editorial La Mujer publishing house, reported that the oral hearing of the trial against Bécquer was held on Tuesday in the Municipal Court of Centro Habana, “almost a year after the allegations against the troubadour.” “On the morning of today, October 19, the verdict was announced” and he was “found guilty,” it added on its Facebook page.
According to the independent blog CiberCuba, Bécquer received a sentence of “five years of correctional work without internment,” in a trial that lasted “more than 12 hours” and in which “some 30 victims” gave their testimony.
“Becquer found guilty. Today my life is life again,” Elaine Vilar, one of the women who sued the musician, said on her Facebook page.
The accusations of sexual harassment and abuse against the singer-songwriter exploded in December 2021, when the blog El Estornudo published the testimony of five Cuban women, which unleashed a heated controversy in social networks.
As a result of that denunciation, the pro-government portal Cubadebate reported that same month that “an investigative process” involving the police, the Cuban Attorney General’s Office and the courts was advancing.
Cuba “is a profoundly macho society”, where “prejudices and sexism survive everywhere”, and “it is very difficult to understand that violence is not only a blow or rape, but that it begins in the most subtle forms”, Cubadebate acknowledged at the time.
According to El Estornudo, by March 2022 there were about thirty women who had contacted the blog to “denounce or report having been victims of similar situations” with Bécquer, who initially denied all accusations.
Bécquer’s is the first case known in Cuba through a strategy similar to that of the global #MeToo movement, emerged 5 years ago, which seeks to raise public and massive complaints of violence or sexual harassment against recognized figures.
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