The writer Maria Christina Garridoher sister Angélica and the activist Lizandra Góngora, arrested for their participation in the 11J protests, announced on Tuesday their refusal to wear the uniform of a common prisoner and declared the beginning of a hunger strike.
The inmates signed a note from the women’s prison in Guatao, Havana, in which they demanded their freedom and recalled “the poor health that the three of us presented.” They added that, for the same reason, their lives are at risk, and that if something happens to them “all justice will fall on their repressors.” He concludes the note with a “resistance salute from this cold shadow.”
Luis Pérez Rodríguez, Angélica’s husband, told 14ymedio that the three young women are “planted”, and that they have refused to receive food from the penal establishment. The difficulty, the man explains, is that this decision can lead to additional retaliation from the authorities.
They could be isolated for more than a week, which means that their relatives will not be able to bring them food or aid. “In other words, it would be ten days of a total hunger strike,” says Pérez Rodríguez.
The three women have not been the only ones to suffer from the rigidity of the regime with the detainees after 11J. Rowland Jesús Castillo, one of the minors prosecuted for his participation in the protests, has suddenly received a tougher sentence for him.
Rowland Castillo is one of the “children of 11J”, accused of the crime of sedition, one of the most severe figures of the Cuban Penal Code used by the authorities to prosecute those detained in the demonstrations
According to the activist Caroline Barrerothe young man, who had been released last May to serve his sentence in a labor camp, he will return to prison on October 6.
The Chamber of Crimes against State Security of the Provincial Court of Havana, details Barrero, determined that Castillo enter the Jovenes de Occidente prison that day, after modifying his sanction to “correctional with internment.” In that place, where many of the 11J protesters are, he will have to stay for five years.
Rowland Castillo is one of the “children of 11J”, accused of the crime of sedition, one of the most severe figures of the Cuban Penal Code used by the authorities to prosecute those detained in the demonstrations. Since his arrest, his mother, Yudinela Castro Pérez, He has vigorously defended his innocence.. Last March, the woman, who also suffers from leukemia, had to be hospitalized for for a suicide attempt.
The young man was initially sentenced to 18 years in prison, but later, last May, he was released along with other detainees. For asking for his freedom, his father, Angel Rolando Castillo Sanchezwas sentenced to two years in prison in an express trial.
“Prison, forced labor and indoctrination, this is how the regime punishes the will for democratic change of young people, widely expressed in the protests of 2021 and 2022”
In the court order sent to Rowland Castillo, it is reported that he will work in agriculture and lodging in a camp, for which he is ordered to bring some utensils such as a towel, a sheet, a bucket and appropriate clothing, “with a view to guaranteeing his best living conditions since the center cannot provide them”.
“Prison, forced labor and indoctrination, this is how the regime punishes the will for democratic change of young people, widely expressed in the 2021 and 2022 protests,” Carolina Barrero added in her publication.
Meanwhile, Estelvina Rodríguez, mother of another 11J prisoner, Dayron Martín Rodríguez, diagnosed as a schizophrenic patient, has demanded his release before the United Nations.
In video shared this monday by the NGO Freedom House to present it to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, Estelvina Rodríguez recalled that Dayron was “one of the many young people who went out peacefully to protest in Havana to demand freedom, a change of government and economic improvements “That 11 J. For this reason, the regime accused him of attacking the security of the State.
“My son’s life is in danger, for being a schizophrenic patient who was previously admitted to a mental hospital for attempted suicide”
The courts imposed on Martín Rodríguez one of the heaviest sentences for his participation in the demonstrations at the emblematic Toyo corner in Havana, no less than 30 years in prison. The pleas of his mother were of no use because of the risk that the young man was running due to his illness.
“My son’s life is in danger, for being a schizophrenic patient who was previously admitted to a mental hospital for attempted suicide,” Rodríguez said in his speech on Monday.
And he added: “He needs to be released, because he is innocent. At least we implore him to be transferred to a medical center with conditions that guarantee his health. We are concerned that in jail he could make an attempt on his life due to his mental condition.”
Rodríguez stressed that Dayron does not have the conditions or adequate medication to treat his condition, and insisted: “I implore this United Nations committee to question the Cuban government about my son’s state of health and to begin an investigation into the true reasons for his arrest.
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