The political prisoner sewed his mouth and injured his arms in protest.
HAVANA, Cuba. – Last October, the Popular Municipal Court of Pinar del Río ratified the sentence of four years of deprivation of liberty for the crime of “attack” against the activist and political prisoner Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez García, told CubaNet on October 29, via telephone, his mother, Nilda García Fleitas.
The new sentence would be another retaliation against the opponent following a protest that occurred at the Pinar del Río Kilo 5 ½ Provincial Prison during the family visit on February 8 of this year. On that occasion, several prisoners, including Rodríguez García, complained to the prison authorities about “the unacceptable conditions” of the prison, such as lack of water and electricity, among others, according to what he told CubaNet the mother of the political prisoner.
After finishing the visit that same day, the young man received his food destroyed and was beaten and threatened with being prosecuted again, which in fact happened.
The new sentence prevents the 35-year-old prisoner from being released just when his previous sentence expired. As a protest, Rodríguez García, who is now imprisoned in the Combinado de Sandino penitentiary center, sewed his mouth and injured his arms, according to what political prisoner Yasser Fernando Rodríguez González, imprisoned in the same prison, also announced by telephone on October 29.
For her part, Nilda García Fleitas pointed out that when she learned, through other inmates, of her son’s self-harm, she went to the Sandino Combinado on Saturday, October 25, but she claims that they did not treat her or let her see the political prisoner, she did not even manage to get information about his condition, she said. Likewise, the woman indicates that she repeated her visit on Sunday the 26th, with the same result.
It was not until Monday the 27th that García Fleitas was able to meet with the director of the prison, Lieutenant Colonel Euclides Reloba Baños. He informed him that his son had sewn his mouth a second time after the guards unstitched it and, for that reason, he alleged, to prevent further self-harm they had kept him handcuffed for several hours. The soldier also added that the prisoner had been transferred to a detachment where he was under surveillance and where his right to speak on the telephone had been suspended.
García Fleitas emphasized that despite having spoken with the uniformed man, he could not verify the physical condition of his son, since he was not allowed to see him.
Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez García is a farmer from the Consolación del Sur municipality, Pinar del Río province. He has been imprisoned since August 3, 2016. He was sentenced to eight years of deprivation of liberty for the alleged crimes of “attack”, “contempt”, “disruption of order”, “defamation of heroes and martyrs” and “sexual outrage”, criminal figures – his relatives claim – fabricated in retaliation for his activism in the opposition movement Alianza Democratica Pinareña.
In October 2021, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted precautionary measures of protection to Rodríguez García, after considering that he was “in a serious and urgent situation of risk of irreparable damage to his rights.”
