(EFE) .
As EFE was able to learn through Ana María García, mother of the defendant, a guard who would have beaten Díaz in the Güines municipality prison in Mayabeque, where he is serving his sentence, presented the charges.
According to the Penal Code, the sanctions for this crime can range from six months to one year.
This day should have been celebrated on the first day of the trial in a Mayabeque court. However, the guard did not arrive, according to Garcia, who was present in the room.
The agent must appear on April 18.
“She spent 12 days without bathing, without attention (medical, she has HIV), they barely gave her food, and without washing her mouth”
García -who has to travel 70 kilometers from his home, in the municipality of Güira de Melena, to reach the court- maintains that his absence is proof that the case lacks substance: “He knows he is lying,” he said in statements to EFE.
According to the mother’s account, Díaz, 29, arrived at the court “handcuffed hand and foot” and “accompanied by four” police officers.
The events for which Brenda has been accused occurred on February 12.
According to García, her daughter was in the prison dining room with her friends when the guard approached them and began to insult them with homophobic expressions.
The trans protester claimed him and that was when she was brutally beaten, according to the defense version.
In addition, García maintains that the blows are recorded in a certificate of injuries included in the file and that it reports bruises on different parts of his body. And that the prosecution has admitted that she received “only with a cane (blow).”
Díaz is in the men’s wing of the Güines municipality jail, in Mayabeque, despite the fact that it does not correspond to his gender identity
After the assault, Brenda was isolated for 15 days. “She spent 12 days without bathing, without attention (medical, she has HIV), they barely gave her food, and without washing her mouth,” lamented her mother.
In August 2022, the Supreme upheld the sentence of 14 years against Brenda Díaz for the crimes of public disorder and sabotage imposed on her by the military court that tried her at first instance.
In its sentence, the high court assured that the sanction was “legal, fair” and “rational”.
According to the proven facts, Brenda -who throughout the process was treated by the gender with which she does not identify- threw stones at a currency store in Güira de Melena, entered the establishment with some protesters and stole a fan, a pot of pressure and jams.
The Supreme Court reduced the sanctions of 11 of the 21 people in the case in which Díaz was involved, most of them accused of the same crimes, by up to six years.
Díaz is in the men’s wing of the Güines municipality jail, in Mayabeque, despite the fact that it does not correspond to his gender identity.
It is a special penitentiary center -with a section for men and another for women- for people with the HIV virus.
The Supreme Court reduced the sanctions of 11 of the 21 people in the case in which Díaz was found by up to six years, most of them accused of the same crimes
Her mother denounced to EFE that her daughter was shaved when she was admitted and suffered a sexual assault inside the prison.
In the original accusation against Brenda, to which EFE had access at the time, the Prosecutor’s Office collected data with transphobic overtones, as various activists consulted by the press agency have criticized.
For example, it is highlighted that, during the protests, Díaz used a dress. She also highlighted the fact that she is HIV positive and confuses her gender identity with a “sexual orientation”.
In Cuba it is possible to change the legal name of a trans person on their identity card and also the photo, but not the gender registered at birth.
This legal loophole allows other arrested trans people like Brenda to end up in prisons that do not correspond to their gender identity.
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