Havana Cuba. – Raidel Rafael Guerra Godínez, one of the thousands of protesters on July 11 (11J) in Cuba, has been imprisoned in Valle Grande for more than 11 months for the alleged crimes of attack, public disorder and instigation to commit a crime. However, the young man still does not have a lawyer to defend him against the regime.
According to his partner, Ariadna Barroso Moreno, who lives with him in the Los Mangos settlement (San Miguel del Padrón), the 33-year-old does not have a legal representative to “advise and help him.”
“By the State it costs 4,200 pesos and we don’t have money to pay it. I am a simple seller of brooms and slackers on the street and from the same money that I earn I have to take food to the prison because the food is bad there, “explains Ariadna.
The Prosecutor’s Office asks Raidel Guerra for nine years in prison. His biggest crime was asking for freedom along with a group of young people on the afternoon of July 11 last yearin San Miguel del Padron.
“He went out on the 11th to ask for freedom because we live like animals, he went out to seek justice. They say that those who left were paid and I live in terrible conditions, next to a ditch that is rotten. Paid people cannot live as we live”, he expresses.
Regarding the massive demonstration of 11J, Raidel himself told CubaNet More than 3,000 people gathered on the Calzada de San Miguel alone, shouting phrases such as “Libertad”, “Patria y Vida” and “Down with the dictatorship”.
“That gave me goosebumps; you saw that and thought that the dictatorship was over. People were riding electric motorbikes, with sticks and cans playing and shouting ‘freedom!’”, he recounts.
That day, after learning about the demonstrations that were taking place in almost the entire island, Miguel Díaz-Canel appeared on national television and gave his followers the order to fight the protesters.
“He said that the revolutionaries had to come out to defend the streets and they were the ones who started throwing stones because it was a peaceful demonstration. That way they would have a justification to intervene and arrest us.”
At the time he was arrested, Raidel recalls being yelled at as “idiot, maggot, fucking nigger.” That day he was transferred to the Aguilera National Revolutionary Police (PNR) station, in the Diez de Octubre municipality. Shortly after, at dawn, he was transferred to Valle Grande, where the guards received him with blows.
“They kicked me, punched me; they hit me by the ears, they broke my mouth, they put my face through the wall; They told me not to look at the guards and that if I fainted they would stick the tonfa in me from behind,” he recounts.
So far, Raidel Guerra Godínez has not been tried, so he is asking for help to hire a lawyer who can defend him once the regime schedules his trial.
“I am alone with him. I am the only one who is going to see it and I need someone to help me”, asks Ariadna.
She, like thousands of relatives of those arrested for the 11J protests, demands Raidel’s release. “He is not a criminal, he came out to ask for the freedom of all Cubans, to live with dignity.”
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