Angel Rolando Castillo Sanchez, father of Rowland Jesus Castilloone of the minors in prison for his participation in the 11J protests on the corner of Toyo, Havana, was sentenced to two years in prison this Wednesday in an express trial, according to the mother of his son, who denounced it on social networks. Yudinela Castro. The process took place with a public defender and the family was notified a few hours before.
Castillo had been in prison since May 5, when he was accused of coercion by Rowland’s friend, Giuseppe Belaunzaran Guada. This minor, the grandson of a Cuban officer, had also been convicted of 11J, but did not go to prison and is serving 10 years of house sentence.
According to Castro, the boy, a friend not only of his son but of other protesters, recorded a video defending them, but the mother denounced Castillo, accusing him of pressuring Giuseppe to make the recording.
Castillo has remained in the Vivac prison, where he has been planted on a hunger strike and refusing medical attention
Castro affirms that the case has been fabricated to stop the protests carried out by Castillo asking for the freedom of his son and other 11J protesters. At the end of April, the man spent several hours in the San Miguel del Padrón police unit with Yanaisi Curbelo and Maylín Fajardo, mothers of Brandon David Becerra Curbelo and Lázaro Noel Urgellés Fajardo. All of them were going to a march to claim for the rights of their children and ended up arrested.
Since his last arrest, in May, Castillo has remained in the Vivac prison, where he has been on a hunger strike and refusing medical attention.
Rowland Castillo was 17 years old when he took to the streets on 11J to protest and has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for sedition. Her mother, Yudinela Castro, has also had to face an arrest at the end of February and has been accused of contempt, but after 15 days locked up in Villa Marista she was released provisionally on March 10.
The woman, who suffers from leukemia, was admitted a few days later to the Julio Trigo hospital in Havana, after an attempt on her life. Family sources told 14ymedio that she was recovering and is undergoing psychiatric treatment.
“It is difficult to have to accept as many cruelties as those that are being seen,” Castro said on Wednesday, after hearing the news. “I, as Rowland’s mother, go as far as I have to go and do everything I have to do legally. Freedom for Ángel Rolando and Rowland Jesús,” she claimed.
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