Cuban professor and opponent Pedro Albert Sánchez was released this Friday in Havana, where he had been imprisoned since November 3, 2021. “I’m already at home, I just arrived,” he announced in a direct transmission From Facebook.
According to exposed the Cubalex organization, Albert Sánchez will be free on bail until the sentence is known and executed, which could be five years in prison. In the video, the professor thanked “all the people who supported me in any way” and said that he would be “recovering” for a few days.
“There are so many things that I have to review, there are so many people that I have to see how they behaved, how they supported me. Unfortunately that would take days,” he said, specifying that his departure does not represent an abandonment of his principles.
Albert Sánchez described the different strikes he had carried out in the Valle Grande prison, in which he was about to serve a year in prison. “I just came out of an 11-day hunger strike that I entered with only 22 days to recover from the previous strike, which was 12 days. That is, I already entered this weakened,” he specified.
“Since 2007 I have been concerned about the closed circle, analogous to a vicious circle, where the economy decreases, disagreements and protests grow, repression increases”
That period does not mean unseateda word that among the inmates means giving up the reasons for their protest, but rather “temporarily fed”, as he explained to the prison and State Security officials.
“I assure you that there will be Pedro for a while,” he said. At 66 years of age and a cancer patient, Albert Sánchez was brought to trial on October 13. Upon his return to Valle Grande, he was able to communicate with the outside through a phone call and substantiated their demands and the reasons for their strike.
“Since 2007 I have been concerned about the closed circle, analogous to a vicious circle, where the economy decreases, disagreements and protests grow, repression grows. As repression grows, the logistics infrastructure to implement it and to justify it has to grow. it implies that it has to feed off of that economy… and the cycle repeats itself,” he assured, noting that the maintenance of this scheme depends on the “almost irrational” functioning of the Ministries of the Interior and of Justice.
He demanded that the Cuban authorities allow a meeting of opponents Manuel Cuesta Morúa, Eliécer Ávila –or some other exile representative– and Albert Sánchez himself, with officials from the aforementioned ministries. In his opinion, a consensus could thus be reached between the “three parts into which the Cuban people are divided.”
“I prefer the analysis, but if there is no analysis, there will be a call,” he said, alluding to the fact that State Security had recommended that he not address the population by calling for the demonstration.
The arrest of Albert Sánchez in 2021 occurred in the context prior to the Civic March for Change, called for November 15.
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