Miami, United States. – The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) denounced The death of a common prisoner identified as José Ángel Blanco González, 49, who would have died from a violent beating in the southern hair prison, located in the province of Mayabeque.
The victim’s wife, Sonia Soler Castanedo, spread audios in social networks in which she details the event and describes the injuries she observed. According to Soler, “the body reached the funeral all full of blows,” and stressed that he has not received the autopsy report: “I need to know what happened because he was a man full of life, 49 years.”
Another inmate dies in a Cuban prison product of blows proposed by the prison garrison. The deceased’s wife, Jose Ángel Blanco González, denounces. #Soscuba #Cuba pic.twitter.com/ockhyvy1no
– Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (@Observacuba) January 29, 2025
The deceased’s wife too He made public Several photos of the state of his partner’s body upon reaching the funeral home. “I have the photos. Hands in the arms, head, bumps on the legs, blows on the legs. In the face he had as a fastest that he looked clear. He was wide and that’s where I really noticed that they killed me to sticks. Below the eye had a bruise. The coat was filling with blood, his underwear, full of blood, ”he said in the audio published by the OCDH.
In addition, she denounced that, although she was always in charge of visiting him, the authorities did not contact her directly. “They did not call me, his wife, married to law in the East Combined In 2014. They called their parents first. They were taken for the Aguilera unit to give them the news, they did not call me, that I have not lacked their visits. It is a crime what they have done with my husband, it is a crime, they killed me. ”
The death of Blanco González occurred at 10:00 in the morning of January 27, although his body arrived at the funeral home at 3:45 in the morning of the next day.
In the middle of the month, the OCDH reported a similar case: Ulises Rodríguez Machado, 73, died from a beating in the prison of kilo 8, Camagüey, allegedly at the hands of an internal order.
According to the Cuban Prison Documentation Center (CDPC), At least 52 inmates lost their lives in the island’s prisons for 2024. Of those cases, five occurred only in December. The majority, according to the CDPC, are due to “negligence and lack of medical care”, although deaths are also recorded by purses proposed by the uniformed.
For the director of the CDPC, Camila Rodríguez, 2024 was a “very frustrating and shocking” year, since the figures double those of 2023, when 24 deaths were recorded in the Cuban penitentiary system. The denunciations of organizations such as OCDH and CDPC point to a human rights crisis after bars, aggravated by delay in emergency medical care and alleged violent actions committed within prisons.
