HAVANA, Cuba.- From the Combinado del Este maximum rigor penitentiary center, located at kilometer 13 ½ of the Monumental road, in the Guanabacoa municipality of the island’s capital, the prisoner José Luis Benítez Gómez denounces having been beaten by soldiers from that facility in retaliation for declaring a hunger strike.
Benítez Gómez is 32 years old, and is a prisoner on the second floor, south wing of building 2. He indicates that he began a hunger strike on July 14 in protest at having been denied the minimum severity regimen for the fourth time. The young man, a resident of the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, alleges that this benefit corresponds to him, since he has already served 13 years in prison of the 22 to which he was sentenced.
Benítez Gómez also denounces that on the seventh day of the hunger strike they took him handcuffed to an office where Captain Daniel Obregón and the second unit chief tried to force him to eat.
He also added that since he did not allow himself to be force-fed, they sprayed him with spray and hit his head against the wall. The inmate emphasizes that as a result his head was broken and he also has a blood spill in his eye, for which he has not been given medical assistance.
He also stresses that he continues on a hunger strike until he receives a response from the prison authorities.
International Amnesty has denounced on several occasions that the human rights of inmates in Cuba they are constantly raped. “The rights of a detained person to communicate with the outside world, to notify someone that they are in detention, and to receive visits are fundamental safeguards against human rights violations such as torture or other ill-treatment and enforced disappearance,” the organization said. in August 2021, one year after the historic July 11 protests.
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