LIMA, Peru – Cuban political prisoner Luis Miguel Oña Jiménez, 27, a 9/11 protester and sentenced to 12 years in prison for sedition, died this weekend on the island.
The NGO Prisoners Defenders reported on the incident on social networksremembering that Luis Miguel was released from prison under an “extra-penal license” just days before his death due to ischemia.
“Practice of the Cuban regime to release seriously ill prisoners when there is no longer hope,” the organization denounced.
Luis Miguel, who was an HIV/AIDS patient, suffered ischemia in the Panama prison in Güines, leaving him unable to move his mouth, hands or feet. After being “evicted” from the hospital, he was sent to his home where, unfortunately, he died 3 days later.
“His mother, with a broken heart, wonders why her son, so young, has died under these circumstances. With Luis Miguel, the Cuban regime takes another life. A young man who dreamed, who protested, and who is no longer here today. This is the cruel reality of repression on the Island,” lamented Prisoners Defenders.
Activist Avana de la Torre lamented the death of the young political prisoner through Facebook, where she blamed the Castro dictatorship for the deterioration of his state of health.
“It was not a natural death. It was the direct consequence of a cruel, negligent and repressive prison system that punishes, abandons and lets die those who dare to demand freedom. They released him not to save him, but to avoid publicly assuming responsibility for his death in custody,” de la Torre said.
According to the NGO Prisoners Defenders, in January 2026the number of political prisoners in Cuba rose to 1,207, after verifying 18 new prisoners of conscience.
The new cases confirm once again the repeated and growing pattern of horizontal and massive repression characterized, among others, by the systematic and widespread surveillance of the population; threats and arbitrary arrests linked to critical publications on social networks and participation in peaceful demonstrations.
