GUANTANAMO, Cuba. — Political prisoner Yordis García Fournier, a protester on July 11, 2021 (J11), declared a hunger strike last Saturday at the Guantánamo provincial prison, they confirmed to CubaNet sources close to the inmate.
A common prisoner who asked to be identified by the pseudonym of Bartolo so as not to face reprisals told this newspaper that García Fournier was taken to a punishment cell for refusing to stand up and stand firm in front of a duty officer on duty.
The source assured that the prisoner declared himself on a voluntary fast and demanded to have an interview with the head of jails and prisons of the province and with the head of internal control of the same. Before the latter he complained about the theft of the money that his mother allocates for his help.
On May 16 of this year, Iraida Fournier Torriente, mother of Yordis, was summoned by State Security to appear at the police station known as Park 24, in Guantánamo. There she was threatened with going to prison under the new criminal code for receiving money from “terrorist organizations.” She also warned her that they would withdraw the card where she collects her retirement.
The woman was forced to withdraw 4,700 Cuban pesos (CUP) from her card to hand it over to State Security. The political police agent gave Yordis’s mother a handwritten receipt as proof of the delivery made to that body of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT).
On July 18, Cuban State Security officials intercepted García Fournier’s mother outside the Guantánamo provincial prison shortly after she had visited her son. That day, the soldiers told her to hand over the aid money for her son again.
The day after the visit, the woman took the same amount of money from her card and took it to the headquarters of the political police in Guantánamo, in the unit known as “Lili Modas.”
On August 5, Yordis’s mother wanted to cash her checkbook for the month of July and realized that all the money had been emptied from her card, including her pension salary and some savings she had for several months.
Yordis García Fournier, signer of the Emily Projectassured his relatives that he will not end the strike until the authorities put an end to the theft of his help and his mother’s pension.
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