SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- The recent death of the young man political prisoner Yosandri Mulet Almarales, 37, after having tried to take his own life, remembers that freedom and justice are often paid for with life.
His 10-year sentence for the July 11-12 protests in The Güinera, Havana, and his death, were a sacrifice for the cause of democracy and freedom in a country where its inhabitants are censored and coerced by rulers who prefer to remain in power at all costs, even at the cost of the lives of their citizens.
Mulet Almarales tried for the second time, this August 22, take off life during a transfer from the penitentiary center where he performed forced labor.
He jumped into the void from the Calabazar Bridgeclose to his residence in Havana, and remained in agony for three days in the intensive care unit of the Julio Trigo hospital, until he died, according to information provided by family sources to Marti News.
Mulet Almarales was sanctioned on charges of “sedition” after participating in the protests of July 11 and 12, 2021 in the La Güinera neighborhood.
The authorities charged him with “complying with the repeated exhortations spread through social networks that incited the people of Cuba to demonstrate, violently and simultaneously, in different localities and to ignore the authority of Cuban state institutions.”
The young man had also tried to end his life in June 2022, in the Combinado del Este prison, where he was being held.
After the failed act, the penitentiary institution refused to grant him an extra-penal license and instead, he was transferred to a less severe regime in the “Toledo” Forced Labor Camp, in the municipality of Marianao.
Another one who pays with his life
At the same age as Mulet, Luis Barrios Diaz He died in 2023, in Havana’s La Covadonga hospital. The young man had been imprisoned in the context of the historic protests and sentenced to nine years in prison, accused of alleged crimes of public disorder and attack.
The politically motivated prisoner had respiratory problems since August 2023, which is why he had been admitted to the infirmary of prison 1580 in San Miguel del Padrón and then transferred to the capital hospital to receive specialized care.
Doctors at La Covadonga warned the prison authorities that it was essential for the young man to be admitted to hospital due to his poor health, but they decided to return him to the prison.
The authorities claimed that they did not have fuel to guarantee permanent surveillance of the political prisonera decision that caused his health to worsen.
Barrios subsequently underwent emergency surgery as a result of his worsening condition. After the operation, already in intensive care, passed away due to respiratory complications.
After his death, in an attempt to free himself from the responsibility that his negligencethe Cuban authorities processed with “unprecedented speed” an extra-penal license for the political prisoner.
Lives at risk
The organization Justice 11J He recalled that Abel Lázaro Machado Conde, 26, who is serving a nine-year sentence in Quivicán prison for the events of 11J, is at risk and has been subjected to multiple abuses in prison. For this reason, he has tried to end his life several times.
In May 2023, after one of his suicide attempts, prison authorities handcuffed him in a hallway for the entire night.
In March 2024, after being beaten by an officer, he sewed his mouth shut and they attempted to remove the wire with pliers.
Ismael Rodríguez González, sentenced to seven years for the 11J, has been diagnosed as at risk of suicide. However, despite having an intellectual disability and personality disorder, he does not have access to his medication in prison.
