Felipe Octavio Correa and Yandri Pelier, two of those arrested for participating in the popular protests in Caimanera, Guantánamo on May 6, have been released, although they remain under police investigation.
Victoria Martinez Valdivia, Correa’s motherconfirmed to 14ymedio that his 26-year-old son had been transferred to his home on the afternoon of this Wednesday. “Yesterday several State Security agents came to my house and asked me for clothes and shoes for Felipe Octavio,” the woman details. “I asked them what was going on and they told me they didn’t know, that they were fulfilling a request from the Operations department.”
“I was upset, because the day before my son had called me and told me that he had a bad headache.” The mother adds that “on Saturday, at noon,” she had been summoned by the chief of the Caimanera political police, Yoani Laffita, and told that “between Monday and Tuesday they were going to release my boy, but he did not comply. his word.”
“Yesterday, after they left with my son’s clothes, Laffita called me and assured me that they were going to release Felipe Octavio. They brought him after seven at night but it was still light, it was not completely dark,” he says. Martinez. “They also brought Yandri Pelier, who is our neighbor and who had his head beaten to death on the day of his arrest.”
“Yesterday, after they left with my son’s clothes, Laffita called me and assured me that they were going to release Felipe Octavio. They brought him after seven at night but it was still light, it was not dark.”
“My son is very pale and thinner. They told him that it was loose but that the process against him continues,” says the woman. “When he arrived, he hugged me, kissed me, I didn’t know what he was going to do with me. I was very excited. I made him food, I bought him candy. He hasn’t slept at all and he’s very hungry, he’s not hungry because they gave him very little food there“.
Martínez’s eldest son, Luis Miguel Alarcón Martínez, 32, is still detained in the Provincial Criminal Investigation and Operations Unit in the city of Guantánamo, and this Thursday his mother must visit him and talk to the lawyer about his case. “I have been told that it is very complicated and that they are going to prosecute him, but we are asking that they let him wait for the trial at home”.
“They warned Felipe Octavio not to approach anyone to talk about the situation in the country, they told Yandri the same thing,” explains Martínez. “I imagine that they keep an eye on them all the time, even my phone must be tapped and everything I say State Security finds out at the moment.”
The two sons of Victoria Martínez were arrested for protesting in the streets of Caimanera together with a crowd that gathered shouting “Freedom!”, “Patria y Vida!” and “Down with the communist system!”. Shortly after, dozens of troops from the National Special Brigade of the Ministry of the Interior, known as the black berets, and repressed the protesters.
The protest, developed in the emblematic municipality which is located near the United States naval base, had a majority participation of women and young people, and was broadcast on social networks. As on other similar occasions, the Cuban regime cut off the internet connection immediately.
As has happened with the protests in the last two years –especially the one on 11J and the ones in the summer of 2022, coinciding with the power cuts–, the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel tried to minimize the demonstrations by classifying the participants as people who “they tried to disturb the public tranquility”, adding in this case that they were “in a state of drunkenness”.
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