Havana Cuba. – From the most rigorous prison El Pitirre, also known as Unit 15-80, in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, the political prisoner Yasser Fernando Rodríguez González denounces several violations committed by prison officials against the inmates.
Via telephone, Rodríguez González announced that the prison authorities have kept him in a punishment cell for more than six months, in retaliation for demanding his rights, in particular the making of a dental prosthesis and glasses.
The political prisoner revealed that since January of this year the prison authorities began issuing safe-conducts to transport the inmates to the hospitals; however, he has not yet been authorized. According to his statements, the justification used by the military is that in the Eastern Combined there is no material to make the dental prosthesis.
Rodríguez González adds that they have also excluded him from visits to the Cuban Institute of Ophthalmology “Ramón Pando Ferrer” (known as the League Against Blindness), despite the fact that, according to his record, on February 7 they took five inmates to have their eyesight measured.
The prisoner stressed that the person responsible for authorizing the transfers, the head of the medical post, has appeared several times in his cell to promise that they will take him to the doctor, something that up to now they have not complied with. In this regard, the official State Security The prisoner stressed, on the contrary, that because he was a “CR” (counterrevolutionary), with him it would be “for a long time”, that is, that for denouncing the frequent violations committed by the prison authorities they would delay in giving him medical treatment.
During the phone call, Rodríguez González also denounced that the second unit chief, Major Osmani Ramírez Díaz, had the opponent and activist isolated in a cell Walfrido Rodríguez Pilot from February 11 to 15 for refusing to wear a shirt in an area where it is not required.
The political prisoner added that Rodríguez Piloto, 54, was on a hunger strike from February 11 to 14 to protest his punishment and because they are not supplying him with his medicines.
Rodríguez González also noted that on the same day, February 14, the deputy chief of Internal Order, Captain José de la Cruz, carried out another individual search of Rodríguez Piloto accompanied by another officer. On that occasion, they took off the padding and stockings with which he protected his hands -because it gets very cold in the punishment cell- with the pretext that during isolation it is not allowed to use these items.
The political prisoner also denounced that on February 12, in company 12, inmate Ernesto Frómeta Águila, 52, died after taking him to the medical post more than five times without having an electrocardiogram done, since the health personnel claimed that it was muscle pain.
According to the interviewee, the last time the cellmates called the guard, he appeared 20 minutes later, when the man had already died.
