MEXICO CITY, Mexico.-Aile Marcano, mother of political prisoner Ángel Jesús Veliz told Cubanet that her son has been in a punishment cell for a month as a result of a crime fabricated by the prison authorities.
The 27-year-old young man was transferred to a more severe regime, in the Kilo 8 prison, in Camagüey on October 18. A week earlier, Veliz had an argument with officer Yuri Torres in the camp where he was being held.
Marcano assures that after the altercation with Torres, the harassment of his son intensified. Until they finally decided to transfer him to prison because in a search they seized a blade that he used for his peeling machine.
“He had had this tool for months in full view of the authorities, who knew it and it was never a problem, until his disagreement with the officer,” explains his mother.
Since then he has been held in a five-foot cell with a concrete wall for a bed. Jesús Veliz barely leaves the small space, except on Mondays when he is allowed to call his family by phone.
Lawyer Laritza Diversent, director of Cubalex, explained to Cubanet that the Cuban prison regulations specify that an inmate can only be in a punishment cell if he represents a danger to himself or to others. A requirement that does not apply in the case of Jesus because he has never behaved violently.
the courage of a mother
“I am very concerned about his health because of the humid and unsanitary conditions in that place. In addition, his blood pressure has risen as a result of Torres’s harassment of him,” he said. Marcano to Cubanet. She is convinced that this action adds to the reprisals against her son to silence her.
Veliz was sentenced to six years in prison, accused of the alleged crimes of public disorder and attack.
Since the young man was arrested for demonstrating against the government on July 11, 2021, his mother has not stopped denouncing and asking for her son’s release.
At the end of April, Marcano traveled to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. There he requested greater international pressure on the Cuban regime for the release of the 9/11 prisoners.
On August 1, she and several relatives of political prisoners protested in front of the Havana Cathedral demanding the release of their loved ones. His activism has earned him incessant harassment from the Cuban government.
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