Cuban artist and dissident Maykel Castillo osorbosentenced to nine years in prison, sewed his mouth shut last week in protest against ill-treatment received in prison, sources close to the opponent reported to EFE on Tuesday.
The co-writer of the song homeland and life -hymn of the anti-government protests of July 2021 and winner of two Latin Grammys- sutured her lips last Wednesday. A nurse removed the thread the next day, according to the same sources.
Similarly, they warned that the dissident was sent to a punishment cell after disseminating graphic material of his protest.
Last week, Cuban activist Anamely Ramosexiled in the US, had reported on her Facebook profile that Osorbo tattooed the slogan “Patria y Vida” on her forearm and threatened to sew her mouth shut, as a gesture of protest against the mistreatment suffered in the Kilo 5 prison and Medio, in Pinar del Río, where he has been imprisoned for two years.
A nurse removed the thread the next day, according to the same sources.
“If you don’t hear from me again on Friday, you know what happened: planted in a cell, with his mouth sewn up. This is war!” warned the musician during a phone call he had with Ramos, who assures that Until then, Castillo had assumed prison as a “resistance” race and had focused on reinventing himself, reading and “connecting” with his family, but now he asks for “respect.”
Ramos recalled that he has been reporting on Castillo’s situation in prison for months, where he has suffered “all kinds of abuses” and the recurring violation of his rights.
It is not the first time that the rapper has sewn his mouth shut to demonstrate against the Government, he also did so in August 2020.
In June of last year, the artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Osorbo were sentenced to five and nine years in prison, respectively.
Otero Alcántara and Castillo were sanctioned for the crimes of insulting the symbols of the country, contempt and public disorder, in the first case, and contempt, attack, public disorder and defamation of institutions and organizations, heroes and martyrs, in the second. Osorbo case.
The process was not linked to the anti-government protests of 2021, but to events that occurred on April 4, 2021. That day, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, Castillo had a run-in with some agents, apparently caused by the fact that his companion was not wearing a mask.
According to various activists spread on networks, Castillo ended his statement during the trial by telling the magistrate: “I hope that the sentence you decide, Madam Judge, is that of your conscience.”
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