Havana Cuba. – “He told me that he could not sleep. I saw him very emaciated, with dark circles under his eyes”, stated to CubaNet Isla Ramos, wife of activist Yasmany González Valdés, known as Yasmany Libre, after visiting him last week at the “Villa Marista” State Security Investigation Center.
According to Ramos, the visit lasted just 10 minutes, was supervised by the case investigator, and was barely able to speak to her husband about the conditions of the imprisonment. However, she assures her, her physical condition showed that she was not well.
The young man was arrested on April 20 after a search of his home, in Centro Habana, in which some 15 agents of the political police participated. Among the personal belongings seized are a mechanic’s uniform, a paint brush and his cell phone.
The operation was part of investigations into anti-government graffiti that appeared in the capital and associated with the organization El Nuevo Directorio (END).
After a month in detention, the authorities informed his wife that they would prosecute him for the alleged crime of “propaganda against government bodies,” for which he could face a sentence of between three and eight years in prison.
“As proof, they have a video in which the person cannot even be identified, it has terrible quality,” his wife explained to CubaNet. “It seems terrible to me to have him detained in those conditions for so long. It is an unfair thing that totally violates human rights,” he added.
Ramos assures that he hired a lawyer and that this Thursday he has scheduled a new visit to González Valdés in Villa Marista.
Yasmany González Valdés has repeatedly reported incidents of harassment by State Security. In 2022, he was fined with Decree-Law 370 for denouncing human rights violations and demanding the release of political prisoners imprisoned after the protests of July 11, 2021. Shortly after, he was detained for four days in Villa Marista, after the which he said he would stop reporting on social networks.
Days before his arrest, González was summoned to the Zanja police station in Havana, where he was linked to the END. On that occasion, according to what he said, they did graphological tests and tried to leave him in custody for non-payment of fines that had already been paid.
The group known as El Nuevo Directorio has claimed responsibility for four posters painted on facades in Havana in recent months. The first of them said “No to the PCC” and appeared last March 20 on the walls of the Faculty of Physics of the University of Havana. Three days later, independent media reported a second graffiti in Parque Aguirre. The third poster, for its part, appeared at the entrance of the University Stadium, on April 17.
The fourth and last one was painted on April 20 at number 7 Humboldt Street, in Centro Habana, right in the place where in 1957 four young men belonging to the Revolutionary Directorate were assassinated by the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship. That day commemorated an anniversary of the event.
