Dayron Yarisbel Garcia Bolañosthe young man arrested after protests on July 22 in Caibarién, was released on bail this Tuesday. Hundreds of people, among whom was García Bolaños, demonstrated that day in the municipality of Villa Clara, amid shouts and pots and pans, against the long blackouts that affect the entire island. During that early morning, the young man was violently arrested at his mother’s house.
Since the arrest, Mario Luis García Marrero, Dayron’s father, has publicly demanded his release several times. This Monday, the parents of the young man were able to meet at the Vivac de Caibarién with the prosecutor who was handling the case. The official showed them videos of the protests and other material involving Dayron.
Then they met with the delegate of their constituency. There was no real dialogue or an attempt to convince the reason, García Marrero assures 14ymedio, they only discussed “nonsense”, which later turned into warnings. “It’s the way they have to talk, threaten or address people.”
“By that time the power had already gone out in Caibarién,” so the officers asked him to wait for the power to return to be able to attend to him. They wrote down his phone number and recommended that she return to his house. Before the blackout ended he received a call from the police.
“They told me: ‘Your son is leaving on bail,'” says García Marrero, who had to pay 1,000 pesos before Dayron was released. “The prosecutor’s office is going to monitor him for three months, and then they will decide whether to impose a fine or if the case is closed. This is how everything is left.”
“The prosecution is going to monitor him for three months, and then they will decide whether to impose a fine or if the case is closed”
Relieved by the return of his son, García Marrero reflects that “this town, apart from hunger, is very afraid.” “I had never gone through a process of this type, with so many claims,” he tells 14ymedio. “I had lived through July 11, but without facing as many things as this time. I also did not know of so many people who could support. I was oblivious to that.”
Although he hopes that “everything will calm down and stay there,” he knows that all the protesters continue to be closely watched by State Security, but this reality is something “that Cubans have learned to handle” without fear or hatred.
Villa Clara also learned that Andy García Lorenzo, one of the young people prosecuted after 11J in Santa Clara, was transferred last week to the El Yabú forced labor camp. According to the statements of his sister, Roxana García Lorenzo, the transfer was motivated by an “incident” in the Soler prison, which was interpreted as “indiscipline” by García’s supervisors.
Through a phone call, the young detainee was able to inform his family about what had happened. As his sister explained to Radio Television Martithe head of the Soler camp “called him out for wearing a hat to protect himself from the sun on the recommendation of the ophthalmologist. As a result of the incident they threatened him with a punishment cell, and he was transferred to El Yabú.”
Andy García is being threatened with the revocation of the measure of forced labor with internment, which could lead him back to prison
Last Friday, Roxana García Lorenzo denounced in a broadcast on Facebook that the authorities had transferred his brother to another prison camp without warning his family. They found out about this change when their father tried to take the young man’s belongings: “In a very ambiguous way, a boss there told us that my brother had been transferred to another center and they did not give us an explanation of where it was.”
That same day, she and her mother went to El Yabú, where the headquarters of the forced labor camps with internment is located. After an hour they were served. “They gave us the security that Andy is there,” said the young woman in her video, adding that they asked to see him, but the authorities refused. They were informed that the next day they would receive a call from the young man.
“They told us that Andy’s blood pressure had risen a lot and that was why he had been transferred there, since the headquarters is there, there is an infirmary and he could be treated,” added his sister. The young woman exposed that her brother is threatened with the revocation of the measure of forced labor with internment, which could lead him back to prison.
Andy García Lorenzo, 24, was sentenced to four years in prison in a trial held in Santa Clara on January 10, along with 15 other protesters who took to the streets on July 11 last year. The Prosecutor’s Office originally requested seven years in prison for him for public disorder, contempt and attack.
On May 25 recently, the young man was one of the prisoners of 11J who was released in Santa Clara, and six days later he was detained again to continue his sentence in a camp.
His family has also been persecuted in the process. On the eve of 11J, her sister, her brother-in-law and his father were also detained by State Security. The three they were interrogated in the Provincial Unit of Criminal Investigations and Operations (Upico) in the capital of Villa Clara, and although they are free, there is supposedly an open investigation process against them.
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