Singer-songwriter Fernando Bécquer, who had been sentenced last October to limited freedom without internment, as a result of multiple complaints of sexual abuse against him, must serve his sentence in jail, according to what was reported by the Havana Provincial Court.
The change in the sentence takes place after Bécquer’s post last Monday on his Facebook page of two provocative song lyrics “still in the composition process,” which unleashed a majority rejection for their misogynistic and offensive nature towards his victims.
As a result of this, “on January 10, the People’s Municipal Court of Centro Habana issued a resolution ordering the revocation of the alternative sanction of 3 years and 4 months of limitation of liberty (probation), originally imposed by final sentence of that same judicial body to citizen Fernando Daniel Becquer Cifuentes for various crimes of lewd abuse,” an official note said.
“The new decision of the aforementioned court of justice, based on Article 33 section 1, subparagraph b) of Law No. 152 of 2022 – Criminal Execution Law –, is due to the fact that citizen Becquer Cifuentes has recently incurred in serious acts that flagrantly and notoriously fail to comply with the requirements of good conduct and respect for the norms of social coexistence, to which he was obliged in compliance with the aforementioned legal situation, as had been previously warned,” a statement by the Provincial Court of the Cuban capital added.
“By virtue of the new ruling, from now on, said citizen will comply with the sanction imposed in the internal regime in a penitentiary establishment,” ended the note, dated this Thursday.
Fernando Bécquer had been found guilty of lascivious abuse by the Centro Habana Municipal Court, after a trial that lasted around 12 hours and in which around 30 women testified. To this day, he insists on his innocence.
After several months of his sentence, this Monday Bécquer published the texts of “Guaracha feminista” and “Anti metoo o Menéate con el negrón,” full of lewdness against his victims; in particular, those that took him to court and in general against those who exerted citizen pressure so that the crimes he committed between 1999 and 2021 did not go unpunished.
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In response, entities such as the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the Cuban Institute of Music, as well as activists, artists and people in general publicly rejected the lyrics published by Bécquer and the controversy surrounding the sanction that initially was imposed on him intensified, as well as the request that the sentence be reviewed and a harsher sentence be imposed.
