AREQUIPA, Peru – There were two acts of peaceful protest that led to the beating and abuse of political prisoner Duannis León Taboada and also led to a stroke in his mother when she learned of the events.
Activist Tania Tasé (Las Taniadas) shared on Facebook what he describes as the “chronology of horror” that the young Cuban experienced in the Combinado del Este maximum security prison.
León Taboada initially demonstrated peacefully after witnessing abuses against other common inmates and after being denied medical care by regime authorities.
Shouting “Patria y Vida” the political prisoner demanded an end to the violations, to which the guards tried to silence him by saying that the situation in the country was “very complex” with the issue of the massive energy blackout. In this regard, they demanded that he not give them any more “headaches.”
While that was happening and the country was spending days in the dark the collapse of the electrical systemthe dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel appeared on national television calling Cubans who were protesting the disaster drunk and indecent.
“When he saw the first detainees from these demonstrations arrive, he wore a sweater with the word Justice,” Tasé points out in his publication.
Duannis León Taboada went out into the hallway and staged the second act of protest in just days. “Enough of the suffering, we don’t need more prisoners for demanding rights, we need freedom,” I demand out loud.
This time the young man was not alone in his complaint. Other inmates joined their claim, including the collaborator of CubaNetÁngel Cuza, who was convicted to one year and six months in prison for the alleged crime of disturbing public order.
“I am dignity! “Freedom! Homeland and Life!” exclaimed León Taboada while the guards handcuffed him and sprayed him with pepper spray.
“They continued spraying him with spray and he continued screaming, until the tube was empty. Then, because he wouldn’t keep quiet, they beat him in handcuffs. In the ribs, in the arms, in the legs, they hit him a lot all over his body, except for the face,” the activist denounces.
According to what he says, the young man was locked up in a walled-off punishment cell with only a small vent that connected to a garbage dump.
“He was trying to get air to breathe under the effects of the pepper spray and was only breathing the gases from the decomposing garbage. TO Cuza They also isolated him in another punishment cell,” adds Tasé.
Since he was detained after the massive protests of July 11, 2021, Duannis León Taboada has been a victim of violence in the Combinado del Este prison. The 25-year-old Cuban was sentenced by the regime to 14 years in prison.
His mother, Jenni Taboada, has not stopped demanding his release. After finding out about the recent abuses against her son, the woman suffered a stroke for which she had to be urgently admitted to the 26 Clinical Surgical Hospital. Currently, she is in the process of recovery.
In conversation with CubaNetJenni has explained that the conditions her son is in are inhumane; and assured that before the historic protests of the 11JDuannis was a normal boy, with many projects and very clear ideas of what he wanted for the future.
