MIAMI, United States. – The Cuban Bárbara Farrat Guillén, mother of the adolescent Jonathan Torres Farrat, imprisoned for 10 months after 11J, assured this Friday to CubaNet that the repression of the regime for her activism even gave her “more strength”, because she knew that the authorities were going to find a way to free her son as long as she would keep quiet.
“Those are always their strategies,” he said.
Farrat Guillén recalled that after beginning his activism for the release of his son and the rest of the Cuban political prisoners, the regime’s harassment against him began.
“On December 24, 2021, they kidnapped me in the middle of the road but I never cared about anything, on the contrary (…). And now the threats are against me personally because they already realized that I did not keep quiet, “he said.
On May 25, Jonathan Torres Farrat was released under a change of measure. However, the prosecutor’s request against him for eight years in prison for his alleged participation in the popular demonstrations of July 11, 2021 is still in force.
Barbara regrets that, after his release, Jonathan “has not been the same again.”
“He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t want to leave the house. (…) Wherever he moves, I have to move with him. He feels very insecure,” he said. “He left traumatized to the point that I am going to take him to a psychologist so that he can process all this,” he added.
The Cuban, turned activist, says that from the day Jonathan was arrested – on August 13, 2021 – he began to live “a nightmare”.
“A week later my son already had three posts. They were accusing him of public disorder, spread of epidemics and attack. (…) Seeing that the government was manipulating his situation, I began to shout for him. That was what made me start denouncing on social networks, seeking support to gain visibility, since I was realizing that they were totally confusing me to the point that today they are asking for eight years of deprivation of liberty, “he said.
For her, another of the most difficult moments of Jonathan’s arrest came on October 27, 2021, when her grandson was born.
“I called 15 and K [Dirección de Prisiones] as long as they brought him to me and I met his baby and they said that since he was one of the protesters, of the ‘slingshots’, he had no right to anything. This has been painful from minute zero, ”she assured.
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