HAVANA, Cuba. – The activist Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) Misael Morales Patterson was transferred from the Guantánamo Provincial Prison to the Las Mangas penitentiary center, in the province of Granma, according to what he himself reported by telephone on January 9.
Morales Patterson said that on December 28 he was “kidnapped” in the Guantánamo Provincial Prison along with the prisoner Raibel Segundo Pacheco Santos by order of Lieutenant Colonel Georvis Cajigal Cantillo, head of the Directorate of Jails and Prisons of that province.
Both prisoners were then transferred to the Operations Unit of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), where they were held in a cell, without their belongings. In that military facility they spent the night, according to Morales Patterson’s testimony, “in a cold cement bed,” without a mattress.
In the early hours of December 29, both inmates were transferred again. First they were taken to the Boniato prison, in Santiago de Cuba, to leave Raibel Segundo Pacheco Santos, who upon arriving was the victim of a beating, according to Morales Patterson.
“Since they took him out of the car [a Pacheco Santos]four soldiers, by order of the leadership, beat him with batons, causing him to faint, and after losing consciousness they continued beating him [hasta que lo encerraron en celda de castigo]”explained the inmate.
Morales Patterson, for his part, was transferred to the Las Mangas prison, in Granma, where he was also isolated under a punishment regime. In the activist’s opinion, the retaliation would be motivated by the fact that both he and Pacheco Santos “are opponents of the system and disagree with its policies.”
This is not the first reprisal against Misael Morales Patterson, since since July 29, 2024, by order of the director of the Guantánamo Provincial Prison, he was confined in solitary confinement for around 100 days as punishment for reporting a beating perpetrated by the military against another inmate in that prison facility.
In this regard, the activist also reported that during the time the punishment lasted he was not allowed to make phone calls or go outdoors. Morales Patterson also stressed that “he was forced to declare a hunger strike” because Major Yordis Castellanos Bullies, head of Internal Order at the penitentiary center and “the greatest violator of the rights of inmates” had him transferred to a cell without drinking water, full of leaks, without lighting and in short “not suitable for human beings.”
Misael Morales Patterson, 38 years old, has been in prison since November 2, 2014. He is serving a 29-year prison sentence for the crime of murder.
