The opponent, who is now under precautionary extent and constant surveillance, recounts the infrahuman conditions of prisons on the island.
Cuban opponent Mario Alberto Hernández Leyva has just left prison after spending almost a month in the East Combined under a new accusation of “disobedience.” His release does not mean full freedom: he remains under precautionary measure and constant surveillance, without the authorities having been specified until when.
In conversation with Cubanet, Hernández Leyva recounts the years of prison he has faced, the conditions within Cuban prisons and the reasons that lead him to continue committed to the struggle for a free and democratic Cuba.
—Mario, how are you after your imprisonment?
“Well, luck went to look for the east combined yesterday and brought me where I live.” They told me that I am under a precautionary measure: I will be guarded, as in house prison, but without knowing when. No one explained how long it will last.
“How many times have you been imprisoned?”
“I have been imprisoned five times.” In 2015 I was imprisoned for the first time, I spent seven and a half prisoner seven months and left thanks to the Agreement for the Liberation of Political Prisoners between the United States and Cuba.
Months later they stopped me again and sanctioned me two years for “resistance.” I went through six or eight different prisons: in Villa Clara, Holguín and Havana. In 2023 I returned to prison, again for a cause manufactured of resistance. I spent ten months until they gave me probation while waiting for trial. At five months, state security stopped me again. They sanctioned me to a year in prison, but they added another cause for “contempt” and made it two years, which I fulfilled almost whole in prison 1580.
In August of this year I had to be free, but when I left a patrol was waiting for me with a new accusation of “disobedience.” They took me again to the east combined, where I was almost a month.
“How are the conditions within those prisons?”
—Infhumanas. There is no water, food is lousy, non -existent hygiene. In 1580 – that prisoners call “El Cebadero” – I was 14 months. There the prisoners do not live on the food they give, but that family members bring. I saw people on the verge of malnutrition. Two young inmates were even hanged in the same detachment where I was, for despair.
Besides, bedbugs don’t let you sleep. The punishment cells are inhuman and political prisoners are the most marked and beaten. The guards treat us as “enemies of the revolution.” They hit me several times just to refuse to put on the common prisoner uniform.
“Does the regime admit that the causes are manufactured?”
“Yes, they tell me in my face:” Mario, we are going to manufacture a cause to have you imprisoned. ” And they do so.
“What do you remember as a particularly hard moment in your last prison?”
“I never forget what a prison chief told me.” He handcuffed me and whispered in my ear: “This is not homeland and life, this is homeland or death.” To answer, they manufactured another complaint of disobedience.
“After everything lived, what holds you in your struggle?”
“I’m still Mario himself, the Cuban who doesn’t give up.” I fight for a free and democratic Cuba, where there is future and hope. Today the Cuban people live in slavery under this system, but I believe that the day will come when we can take off those chains. My commitment is to continue fighting for that freedom.
