Havana/Cuban musician and activist Fernando Almenares Rivera, better known as Nando Obdc, remains hungry strike in Cuba Panama prison, located in Güines, Mayabeque. His mother, Eva Rivera, has publicly denounced that he has not been able to communicate with the rapper or received reliable information from the authorities.
“He has no reason to believe in the pretexts they give him to prevent him from seeing him,” wrote the journalist María Matienzo, who disclosed the case in social networks. The artist has stopped feeding, in jail for HIV/AIDS patients of Güines, where he is being held, to claim that his legal process be expedited.
Almenares Rivera He was arrested On December 31, 2024 in his home in the Havana municipality of La Lisa and was accused of “propaganda against the constitutional order”, supposed “subversive activities” and links with people who promote “terrorism against the Cuban state.”
In one of the visits that his mother made in prison, the case instructor told Rivera that they were processing his son for a related crime “with a fire that occurred in Lenin Park, on December 30,” but the family denies any implication of the artist in the fact.
For its part, the Prosecutor’s Office has not submitted provisional conclusions nor has any trial been held against it
For its part, the Prosecutor’s Office has not submitted provisional conclusions nor has any judgment against him been held, after more than seven months of imprisonment. Its arrest is qualified by organizations and family members as arbitrary and unfair.
The prison authorities have claimed that “Nando is fine and is not in a punishment cell”, but a seclusion partner contacted his family and confirmed that the activist is planted in protest for its imprisonment, which it considers unfair, according to A relative told to Martí News. To the concern for its legal situation, the fear of possible forced medical treatments is added, without prior diagnosis or informed consent, according to activist Kirenia Yalit Núñez Pérez, director of the table of the Cuban Youth Unit and resident in Madrid.
Last January, the International Organization article 19 demanded the immediate release of Nando Obdc, after knowing that it had been transferred to the State Security General in Havana, Villa Marista, and later to the Mayabeque prison. The arrest day, regime agents broke into his house without judicial citation, confiscated personal objects and also took a Cuban flag, according to his wife, Adriana María Machado.
The Nando ObdC’s artistic and critical profile has been in the sights of the repressive apparatus for years
He Artistic and critical profile Nando Obdc has been in the sights of the repressive apparatus for years. In December 2024, collective exhibition coordinated from Cuba Forbidden Art: From Cubaheld in Miami, with works by creators censored on the island and in support of political prisoners.
He has also collaborated with artists like Maykel Osorbocurrently in prison, and David D Omni, and has been threatened in the past by his publications in social networks. In 2021, he was summoned to a police unit where he was warned: “We are going to get for you, you will have to move from the Lisa,” as the rapper Navy Pro recalled in a complaint on Facebook.
Currently, his family continues without verifiable news about his state of health and requires that he be allowed to receive visits, adequate medical care and a fair trial is held. “He is unfairly there,” a relative reiterated Martí Newswhile activists alert about the risks of prolonging the isolation and physical deterioration of an artist who should never have been in prison.
