The journalist Esteban Rodríguez, detained until Tuesday in the Combinado del Este for the Obispo street protest, is in El Salvador with his colleague Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho after Nicaragua denied them entry to the country. Both are reporters for the independent Cuban daily ADN and members of the San Isidro Movement.
14ymedio He had knowledge on Tuesday night when Inti Soto and Ángel Cuza were released from prison, the only activists who remained in prison together with Rodríguez for the April 30 protest, and he tried to contact Valdés Cocho to find out the situation of the last of the detainees that apparently remained to be released, but his cell phone was turned off.
This morning, Valdés Cocho published a post on his Facebook reporting that both were forced “to make the decision to leave our country bound for Nicaragua.”
This morning, Valdés Cocho published a post in its Facebook reporting that both were forced “to make the decision to leave our country bound for Nicaragua”, although he adds that his intention was to stay there for a few days to end up landing at the place where many Cubans arrive “fleeing the terror perpetuated by a totalitarian system “.
However, according to their testimony, the route had a stopover at the Tocumen airport (Panama), from where they had to fly to El Salvador before continuing to Managua. It was at that point, upon arriving at the San Salvador airport, when they were called by the loudspeaker to inform them that Nicaragua, governed by a partner of the Cuban regime, Daniel Ortega, was rejecting them.
“They never gave us an explanation, much less a possible solution to this problem that arose for us. Stranded in San Salvador, in a migratory limbo and without the idea of returning to our land due to the imminent threat of prosecution if we did,” says Valdés Cocho.
According to the reporter, Rodríguez was taken to the Havana airport at dawn directly from the prison, with the marks on the feet of the calls shakiras (wives), at dawn this Wednesday. He assures that he was also taken to the same terminal, where they were both told that they were expelled and that they would never be able to return to Cuba.
“Here we are; without solutions, without money, without food and imploring the Salvadoran government or any country in democracy; to help us,” he writes.
According to him, they have not received a response from the immigration authorities of El Salvador, nor to the asylum application that they claim to have submitted. For all these reasons, they have started a hunger strike.
According to him, they have not received a response from the immigration authorities of El Salvador, nor to the asylum application that they claim to have submitted. For all this, they have started a hunger strike
Esteban Rodríguez has spent eight months in prison since on April 30, 2021, he tried, along with other protesters, to approach the house of artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who was on a hunger strike. When the police tried to block them, the group started a sit-in to protest against what they considered a limitation of their right to free movement, but they were arrested.
Of the six activists who were sent to prison for these events, Mary Karla Ares was released in May and Thais Mailén Franco Benítez and Yuisan Cancio last september.
With the release on Tuesday of Inti Soto and Ángel Cuza, only Rodríguez remained in the Combinado del Este prison, where he claims to have been subjected to torture and isolation in punishment cells with subhuman conditions.
Rodríguez also intervened in the Facebook direct, where he denounced that he had not been able to say goodbye to his family. “It was eight months under a tremendous hell, I always thought that when I broadcast again it would be in my Havana, in my Cuba, with the people of my neighborhood. Not in this way, having to leave my country, simply because I fear for my life”.
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