MADRID, Spain.- The Cuban authorities denied the change to a minimum severity regime to the independent journalist and Cuban political prisoner Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, who had been requested by his wife Eralidis Frómeta Polanco last February.
“On February 6, I filed a lawsuit with the Attorney General’s Office, directed at the penitentiary centers of the Cuban regime. Today, March 7, I received the answer that my husband was denied, once again, the right to due process. The right to have, as an inmate, a regime of minimum severity (…) because they do not consider that Yuri is ‘re-educated’”, Frómeta explained to Radio Television Martí; as well as shared the response of the Prosecutor’s Office.
The document reads that although article 44, subparagraph C, of the prison system, establishes that prisoners in a severe regime can be evaluated to pass to a regime of minimum severity, taking into account “social conduct before committing the act, and its social or penitentiary danger”, Valle Roca was “evaluated”. After the evaluation, the regime change was denied, despite the delicate state of health of the opponent and the constant complaints from international organizations that demand his release.
While incarcerated in the Combinado del Este, Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca practically lost his vision and was diagnosed with hypertension.
In July 2022 the opponent was condemned to five years in prison by the Havana Provincial Court, due to the alleged crimes of continuous enemy propaganda and resistance. The activist is implicated in Cause 3 of 2022, corresponding to file number 31, related to the release of leaflets with phrases by José Martí and Antonio Maceo that demanded democratic reforms in Cuba, freedom for political prisoners and an end to repression. The release of the leaflets was recorded and shared on the networks by Valle Roca on June 14, 2021. The following day he was arrested and transferred to the Zapata y C police unit. After staying there for a short time, he was transferred to Villa Marista, the General of the Security of the State of Cuba, and later to the Combinado del Este.
After the sentence, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) denounced the island’s government and considered that “it was an extreme measure to maintain censorship.”
Last November, the former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize winner Óscar Arias declared who would sponsor Valle Roca.
