HAVANA, Cuba. – In 73 days of imprisonment, opposition activist and independent communicator Carlos Michael Morales Rodriguez He went on two hunger strikes that lasted 45 days. He was released on July 19 after being tried and sentenced to eight months of house arrest.
“My innocence was proven at the trial. It was a rigged trial by State Security, full of slander and inconsistencies. My lawyer dismantled each of the prosecution’s arguments. They accused me of ‘disobedience’ and claimed that I was a ‘counterrevolutionary’, a ‘mercenary in the service of the empire’ and all that worn-out talk that had nothing to do with the alleged crime,” he said in an interview with CubaNet.
Morales Rodríguez had been arrested on May 4 and charged with “disobedience” for refusing to attend two police summonses, which he considered did not comply with legal requirements. In prison, he claimed, he was beaten and denied medical care. He also claims that State Security offered him freedom in exchange for recording a video in which he declared that he was breaking his ties with the opposition. His response was to refuse to do so and to say that he would rather die than give in.
The hunger strikes have left him very thin and weak. Morales Rodriguez told CubaNet that he is undergoing several medical examinations after which he will have to be evaluated by specialists.
“One of the most severe symptoms is swelling of the legs, which doctors fear is due to kidney or heart problems,” the 48-year-old activist explained.
Despite what he describes as a “terrible state of health,” the opposition leader living in the municipality of Caibarién, Villa Clara province, is being threatened with being sent to a maximum security prison.
According to Morales, last Wednesday the president of the Municipal Court of Caibarién, Sandro Rodríguez, demanded that he have an employment relationship with the State and threatened to send him to prison if he did not do so.
“I cannot work now, neither with the State nor with a private individual; my health is very weak, broken. They are trying to blackmail me by trying to impose on me the treatment of a common prisoner, which I reject: I am a political prisoner and this is due to the brutal repression that is imposed on me,” he told CubaNet.
“My life is in danger,” he added. The activist believes that if he is returned to prison, his health will be “drastically damaged.”
Political prisoner of 11J
Morales Rodríguez had just been released in March of this year, after serving a full sentence of two years and 10 months of imprisonment for the alleged crime of “public disorder” following his participation in the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021 in Caibarién.
Just a month before his release from prison and in the midst of a hunger strike, he was brutally beaten in Guamajal prison, he said.
“On February 26, 2024, I was beaten by Captain Felix, who broke my mouth while I was handcuffed in such a way that I suffered injuries to my wrists; this while the head of the prison insulted and offended me,” he said.
During his time in prison, Morales Rodríguez recalls that he went on several hunger strikes in protest against the abuses committed against all prisoners, mainly those imprisoned for political reasons. He was held in solitary confinement as a form of punishment and subjected to physical and psychological torture.
“Every time I protested, peacefully but vigorously, I maintained a firm and rebellious attitude and that is why they took reprisals against me. I was beaten on several occasions, they put me in a walled cell, in solitary confinement; it was a brutal and constant siege that I received in the prisons of Villa Clara. I was close to death on several occasions,” he said.
The activist says he has managed to survive “thanks to international solidarity.”
Morales also told CubaNet He has more than 15 years of experience in opposition activism on the island. During this time, he has been part of several citizen initiatives with the aim of defending human rights, including the National Front of Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience “Orlando Zapata Tamayo” and the Cuba Decide platform. He has also collaborated with local independent news projects (including Martí Noticias and Radio República, a radio station in the country). Cuban Democratic Directoryan organization based in exile in Miami).
For this work, he explains, he has been constantly harassed by State Security agents, who have summoned him, beaten him and arrested him.
“I ask all media and organizations that support me to report on my situation, it is the only thing that can save my life,” he warned.
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