SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- The prisoner politician Juan Enrique Pérez Sánchez was sent to a punishment cell known as “the hole”, after having sewn his mouth and going on a hunger strike to protest the lack of medicine because the authorities of the Melena Dos prison, in Melena del Sur , Mayabeque, they took away her medications for asthma and blood pressure, as confirmed by activist Anamely Ramos to CubaNet.
The 41-year-old musician and father of four minors received a visit from his wife, Dayana Aranda, a few days ago, who supplied him with the medications he depends on: for asthma, for blood pressure and the pills he uses to sleep. However, the jailers took them away from him and, in protest, he stood up and sewed his mouth shut, an action he has resorted to on another occasion to demand respect for his rights.
The political prisoner, condemned to eight years of deprivation of liberty for “public disorders”, “contempt” and “sabotage” after demonstrating on July 11, 2021 in Nueva Paz, Mayabeque, he was taken in handcuffs before the first and second chief of the prison and was then detained in a punishment cell.
According to testimonies from other inmates who communicated with Pérez’s wife, the Cuban repressors took him out of that cell but did not return him to his detachment, Anamely Ramos said.
“We don’t know if they took him to the medical station, because he was planted, or because he had sewn his mouth, we don’t know if they took him to another company or another detachment,” he added, insisting that the location of the political prisoner is currently unknown. .
According to denounced he Cultural Rights Observatory, the musician is very thin and suffers from constant asthma and pressure.
“Juan is an empirical musician from the town of Vegas in the Municipality of Nueva Paz, Artemisa. Like so many humble Cubans, he went out to protest peacefully on June 11, 2021 and never returned home,” the Observatory wrote.
The Cultural Rights Observatory issues a #alarm for him #prisonerartist Juan E. Pérez who, in protest, has cooked his mouth. He was sent to the punishment cell. This #PLANTED.
We open pic.twitter.com/zBFvlGd9w5
— Observatory of Cultural Rights (@CubaODC) October 9, 2024
This is not the first time that, in an act of protest against the abuses suffered in his arbitrary confinement, Pérez has gone on a hunger strike and sewn his mouth shut.
In the first prison he was in, the Quivicán prison, Mayabeque, Juan Enrique Pérez sewed his mouth with wires.
“In both prisons he has faced all kinds of harassment from the officers, who try in vain to break his spirit of rebellion and justice. The cruelty has been particularly brutal,” alleged the Cultural Rights Observatory.
“In his personality, supportive behavior and virtue stand out, backed by unbreakable strength,” highlighted the publication, which also included a poem that he composed for the mothers of Cuban political prisoners and that he managed to give to his wife during the visit to the prison.
