Havana/The opponent Felix Navarro has been in prison since July 11, 2021 (11J). Almost four years later, as part of a deal between the Cuban regime and the Vatican to release 553 prisoners, he was granted conditional freedom this Saturday. He left the Agüica prison, in Matanzas, with the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen to his daughter Sayli, imprisoned for also participating in the massive protests.
Among the “many visits” and calls that besiege him to celebrate his release, he talks with 14ymedio. “If I didn’t have this family and the brothers who have surrounded me in Cuba and the entire world, I would not have been able to get out of prison,” he says. “I found the family very well and very united.”
Starting in November 2022, she was allowed to see her daughter Sayli, a prisoner in the Matanzas Women’s Prison, who was transferred every 45 days to meet her father in the Agüica prison – almost 100 kilometers away – for two hours. . There he had to talk to her in front of his guards, in an office.
As of November 2022, she was allowed to see her daughter Sayli, imprisoned in the Matanzas Women’s Prison
“I always see her as thin. The feeding situation [en las cárceles cubanas] It’s always bad. But [ha logrado mitigarla] thanks to friends and brothers in struggle, with visits every 15 days,” he says. At first, when his jailers suggested calling his daughter by phone, Navarro rejected the offer. “You imprisoned her,” he told them. Finally they decided to take her.
Navarro considers that his daughter, in addition to other political prisoners such as Sissi Abascal and Tania Echevarría – all three, Ladies in White – “have given the battle they have endured.” “We would not have wanted to go through this situation, but we are amazed at how these three women have behaved.”
In prison, only two other people could visit him at a time and every 50 days. His family and friends had to rotate. “There was always one of my brothers and nephews there. Anyone with the last name Navarro or Rodríguez could enter, that was the way,” he says.
His jailers were inflexible with that rule. The opponent Iván Hernández Carrillo, for example, could not enter despite the fact that Navarro considers him his “blood brother” because – political activism aside – he did not have his last name. “However, he accompanied my family many times,” he says. “I told Iván: ‘My brother, I need you not to let yourself be provoked on the street so that they don’t take you to jail.’ “If Iván is imprisoned, what is lost is a battalion.”
In 2016, Navarro was diagnosed with diabetes, a disease that caused him to spend difficult days in prison.
In 2016, Navarro was diagnosed with diabetes, a disease that caused him to spend difficult days in prison. Now, he says, he has “sugar lows,” although he does not consider that he is going through a critical moment. “Sometimes I lose consciousness, I can’t get out of bed. Diabetes knocked me down once at midnight and other times at dawn. “I don’t remember anything that happened during that time.”
The unconsciousness lasted from one to two hours. In prison, his diet contributed to the worsening of the disease and did not meet the requirements to maintain sugar levels. “The last visit I had was on December 6. From that day to now I have gained five kilograms and I have not had any more downturns. However, this Sunday I ran out of medicine and I couldn’t talk to the family either.”
Navarro thanked his “brothers in exile” for the visibility given to his case, in particular the Legal Rescue Foundation and its president, Santiago Álvarez Fernández-Magriña, a “Cuban patriot,” Navarro describes. Also to the Cuban American National Foundation. He celebrates the release this Thursday of José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, whom he describes as “a lion, a great man.”
At noon this Saturday, the Prisoners Defenders organization reported 89 releases, “the vast majority of conditional release that had been due to them for a long time and had been denied.” The Government, for its part, said this Friday that it had already released 127 inmatesa figure that has sparked controversy and which indicates – if true – that there are a large number of common prisoners who have been discreet with their release. Of these, only about 50 were political prisoners.
