Havana/With the arrest of 19 people in May, the Cuban regime has a total of 1,113 political prisoners, according to the most recent report by Prisoners Defenders, published this Thursday. Of the cases listed in the month, 11 are protesters from the Juraguá protests, in Cienfuegos, on May 28.
In the same period, only five political prisoners were released, “after full compliance with the sanction or measure imposed,” PD said. Likewise, Lisdani Rodríguez Isaac, from Villa Clara, was released with an extra-penal license granted due to her pregnancy and which will last one year, after which he could return to prison.
According to the organization, based in Madrid, the month of May was characterized by the “repression against peaceful protesters, the large-scale repressive operation against independent journalists, the torture of prisoners with psychiatric conditions and the denial of prison benefits for political prisoners with right to them,” such as probation or suspension from correctional work, according to the statement.
On May 20, the political police also detained, interrogated, summoned or prohibited other independent journalists from leaving their homes.
In the specific case of those detained in Juraguá, who took to the streets to protest the prolonged blackouts and the lack of other essential services, “the authorities imposed a bail of 200,000 Cuban pesos on them – $530 in the informal exchange market.” in Cuba, a figure unattainable for the majority of Cubans – and they are being prosecuted for the alleged crimes of public disorder, contempt or attack,” the organization explains.
Erich González Lima, a journalist residing in the Juraguá Nuclear City, is one of the protesters detained by the Cuban authorities for participating in the protest. On May 20, when Republic Day was commemorated – which the regime does not celebrate –, the political police also detained, interrogated, summoned or prohibited other independent journalists such as Juan Manuel Moreno Borrego or Antonio Suárez Fonticiella from leaving their homes.
That month, José Luis Boada Valdés was also sentenced to nine years in prison for the crime of “propaganda against the constitutional order.” Boada had been imprisoned for more than two years in the Combinado del Este for having written on a wall several phrases contrary to Miguel Díaz Canel.
PD also warned about the violation of prisoners’ rights in Cuban prisons, and gave as an example the case of Adel de la Torre, a young man who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and who, at the age of 25, “was imprisoned for demonstrating peacefully” during the social protests of July 11, 2021, and sent to prison 1580, located in San Miguel del Padrón, Havana. The organization denounced the “violent beatings by the guards” that the young man has suffered.
The relatives of most of these inmates have tried to negotiate with the authorities for better medical treatment and stay in prisons.
Other political prisoners have been denied transfer to less severe regimes or other measures to which they should have access. This is the case of Luis Robles Elizastigui, the “young man with the banner”, sentenced to five years in prison for erecting, in 2021, a poster calling for the freedom of rapper Denis Solís. According to PD, the young man was denied conditional release because, “although he satisfies the minimum required term and maintains adequate conduct in a state of confinement, the Court took into account the seriousness of the incident, in addition to the proliferation it had in the population and in citizen tranquility, being necessary to ratify his confinement so that he can reflect on the criminal action(s) carried out,” according to the aforementioned court.
The monthly report of the Cuban Center for Human Rights, directed by the opposition Martha Beatriz Roque, offers a similar balance. The document denounces the mistreatment of prisoners with psychiatric or chronic conditions, including, as more “difficult” cases, Alexander Díaz Rodríguez –cancer patient–, Abel Lázaro Machado Conde –psychiatric disorders and epilepsy–, Dayron Martín Rodríguez – psychiatric patient with suicidal behavior – and Ismael Rodríguez González – psychiatric conditions.
The relatives of most of these inmates have tried to negotiate with the authorities for better medical treatment and stay in prisons. Many are even forced to take medicine to the prison to treat the illnesses of political prisoners, but the authorities have ignored their requests that the prisoners’ rights be respected.
