“I am going to denounce the repressor,” says Ana Mary García, mother of Brenda Díaz, the trans protester sentenced to 14 years in prison for her participation in the protests on July 11, 2021. The young woman has received a new sentence that adds to the previous one, this time to seven months in prison, for the crime of “contempt”.
García assures 14ymedio that the accusation is “a lie, since she was brutally beaten by a prison guard” from the municipality of Güines, in Mayabeque. Although she defines her daughter as a “strong” person, her mother fears that this new cause will affect her mood. On April 25, she must visit Díaz in jail and only then will she be able to find out about her current situation.
Initially, the trial against Brenda Díaz was scheduled for Friday, April 14, in a Mayabeque court. However, the guard did not arrive and the oral hearing was postponed to this Tuesday.
According to García, her daughter was in the prison dining room with her friends when the guard approached them and began to insult them with homophobic expressions.
García – who had to travel 70 kilometers from his home, in the municipality of Güira de Melena, to reach the court – maintains that the accuser’s absence was proof that the case lacks substance: “He knows he is lying,” he said in statements to the Spanish news agency EFE.
According to the mother’s account, that Friday Díaz, 29, arrived at the court “hand and foot handcuffs” and “accompanied by four” police officers.
The events for which Brenda has been accused occurred on February 12.
According to García, her daughter was in the prison dining room with her friends when the guard approached them and began to insult them with homophobic expressions.
The trans protester claimed him and that was when she was brutally beaten, according to the defense version.
In addition, García maintains that the blows are recorded in a certificate of injuries included in the file and that it reports bruises on different parts of his body. And that the prosecution has admitted that she received “only with a cane (blow).”
Díaz is in the men’s wing of the Güines municipality jail, in Mayabeque, despite the fact that it does not correspond to his gender identity
“He spent 12 days without bathing, without attention [médica, ella padece de VIH]they barely gave him food, and without washing his mouth”
After the assault, Brenda was isolated for 15 days. “She spent 12 days without bathing, without attention [médica, ella padece de VIH]they barely gave him food, and without washing his mouth,” lamented his mother.
In August 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the 14-year sentence against Brenda Díaz for the crimes of public disorder and sabotage imposed on her by the military court that tried her in first instance.
In its sentence, the high court assured that the sanction was “legal, fair” and “rational”.
According to the proven facts, Brenda – who throughout the process was treated by the gender with which she does not identify – threw stones at a currency store in Güira de Melena, entered the establishment with some protesters and stole a fan, a pot of pressure and jams.
The Supreme Court reduced the sanctions of 11 of the 21 people in the case in which Díaz was involved, most of them accused of the same crimes, by up to six years.
Díaz is in the men’s wing of the Güines municipality jail, in Mayabeque, despite the fact that it does not correspond to his gender identity.
Her mother denounced EFE that her daughter was shaved when she was admitted and suffered a sexual assault inside the prison.
It is a special penitentiary center –with a section for men and another for women– for people with the HIV virus.
Her mother denounced to EFE that her daughter was shaved when she was admitted and suffered a sexual assault inside the prison.
In the original accusation against Brenda, to which EFE had access at the time, the Prosecutor’s Office collected data with transphobic overtones, as various activists consulted by the press agency have criticized.
For example, it is highlighted that, during the protests, Díaz used a dress. She also highlighted the fact that she is HIV positive and confuses her gender identity with a “sexual orientation”.
In Cuba it is possible to change the legal name of a trans person on their identity card and also the photo, but not the gender registered at birth.
This legal loophole allows other arrested trans people like Brenda to end up in prisons that do not correspond to their gender identity.
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