Havana Cuba. — The political prisoner Ernesto Arocha Carta, a member of the Movimiento Opositores por una Nueva República (MONR) —led by José Díaz Silva—, denounced that he is serving a three-year sentence of deprivation of liberty in the Guantanamo Provincial Prison. The reason for his confinement: an alleged offense of contempt as punishment for issuing proclamations and painting posters against the dictatorship.
From that most rigorous penitentiary center, the inmate declared by telephone to CubaNet that, although he is a resident of the Havana municipality of Regla, he was transferred to the Guantánamo prison for not wanting to remove some protest tattoos that he has on his arms and back.
The activist denounced the director of that prison, Lieutenant Colonel Marcelino Bueno Tavera, as responsible for the fact that inmates with health conditions —as is his case, since he suffers from chronic ulcers and allergies to some foods, among other pathologies— do not receive food differentiated they need.
According to the prisoner, the military alleges that in the Guantanamo penitentiary they do not have the resources to guarantee specialized food to the inmates whose ailments require it. The same argument has been repeated for three months, highlighted the political prisoner. Arocha Carta also assured that the true cause of the deficient menu lies in the fact that the military and prison staff misappropriate the food and supplies intended for the inmates.
The inmate also mentioned the head of Internal Order, who, given his demands for an adequate diet, has ordered him to eat plain rice.
The activist regretted that prison system officials can act with total impunity and commit any kind of abuse against prison inmates, since, being backed by their membership in the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), there is no one who can stand up to them.
According to testimonies from other prisoners, a protest motivated by poor nutrition or any other violation in the Guantánamo provincial prison can be punished with several days of confinement in the “psychiatric ward”, a name given by the military and officials of the prison system refer to what several witnesses have described as a room with five bunks fixed to the floor and infested with bedbugs, where inmates are bound hand and foot for several days, naked and without food or water.
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