MIAMI, United States. — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted precautionary measures in favor of the protesters of July 11, 2021 (11J) Walnier Luis Aguilar Rivera and Ibrahim Dominguez Aguilarheld for months in prisons on the island.
through the Resolution No. 30/22the IACHR asked the Cuban regime to adopt “the necessary measures to protect the rights to life, personal integrity, and health” of both political prisoners and to ensure that their detention conditions “are compatible with applicable international standards on the matter.”
The regional body made it clear that the measures must be coordinated with the inmates and their representatives and urged Havana to “report on the actions taken to investigate the alleged facts that gave rise to the adoption of this precautionary measure and thus avoid its repetition.
The IACHR statement recalls that Walnier Luis Aguilar Rivera and Ibrahim Domínguez Aguilar are “deprived of their liberty under sentences of first instance and with appeals pending decision or formal notification.”
The Commission also highlighted “the seriousness of the allegations regarding ill-treatment that the proposed beneficiaries would have suffered in prison and the terrible conditions of detention that they would be subjected to, particularly considering that the risk events could be attributed to prison authorities.”
According to the IACHR, the allegations of both political prisoners coincide “with the information that has been received from the monitoring of the country, specifically on the deplorable conditions of detention of persons deprived of liberty in Cuba, such as prison overcrowding; insufficient medicines, food and drinking water; inadequate hygiene and sanitation; poor medical care; and a wide margin of discretion that its agents have when guaranteeing order inside the penitentiary centers.”
Walnier Luis Aguilar Rivera, who, according to his own relatives, suffers from an intellectual disability, was arrested on July 20, 2021, nine days after the historic anti-government protests that shook the island. He was later sentenced to 23 years in prison for the alleged crime of “sedition”.
For his part, Ibrahim Domínguez Aguilar, who ventured into the world of hip-hop, was one of the leaders of the 11J protests in the municipality of Contramaestre, province of Santiago de Cuba.
The images spread on social networks showed the police persecution against Ibrahim during the protests, including the moment in which an alleged State Security agent dressed in civilian clothes drew a firearm against him.
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