The prison director seized the equipment and also suspended the woman’s right to visit her son for six months.
HAVANA, Cuba. – Citizen Ana Belquis Márquez Rodríguez was the victim of a search and the seizure of her mobile phone by the authorities of the Combinado de Sandino penitentiary center in Pinar del Río, according to what she herself reported in a telephone conversation with CubaNet this November 11th.
Márquez Rodríguez is the mother of inmate José Manuel Olivera Márquez, who has been imprisoned in that prison since July 9, 2022, sentenced to eight years in prison for his alleged complicity in a crime of robbery with force.
The woman reported that on November 4 she showed up at the prison facility to visit her son. As he mentioned, the groceries he brought to the young man cost him all the money he had available.
He also explained that the prison authorities have an arbitrary rule that forces prisoners’ relatives to leave their mobile phones in houses in front of the prison, where they are charged 50 or 60 pesos in national currency for the “service.” However, Márquez Rodríguez did not have any money on him other than the return transportation fee, therefore, as he has done on previous occasions, he left the cell phone turned off inside his wallet before handing it over to the military in the purse (that is, there was no possibility of introducing it to the area where the visit takes place, which is what the uniformed officers are interested in preventing).
However, the soldier in charge of receiving the bags and wallets searched hers – something that, she pointed out, they had never done before – and upon discovering the mobile phone, despite her pleas, she immediately called the director of the prison, Lieutenant Colonel Euclides Reloba Baños.
As punishment for not having kept the cell phone in the house across the street, the uniformed officer took the equipment and also suspended his right to visit his son for six months, starting that same day. He also did not allow the delivery of the food, so the woman had to return home with them.
The inmate’s mother reported that in response to her protests, the prison director told her that the phone “was already lost,” and that she should not go and claim it “or from the Delegation.” [del Ministerio del Interior]nor to the Pinar del Río Sector” (located in front of the Kilo 5 ½ Provincial Prison), because “I had no right.”
Márquez Rodríguez, who is a teacher by profession, highlighted that in addition to the obvious economic damage and the foreseeable lack of communication, the measure affects her doubly, since the illegally confiscated cell phone is her work tool and it contains all the material she needs to teach classes.
The woman, 56 years old, resides in the town of Santa Damiana, in the San Juan y Martínez municipality of Pinar del Río.
