Madrid/“I had already served my sentence, but I was still a hostage,” says Luis Robles in conversation with 14ymedio a few hours after his arrival in Madrid, on Monday, and after serving five years in prison in Cuba for walking in Havana with a banner asking for freedom. In the Spanish capital, he is accompanied by his mother and his six-year-old son, while his brother Lester remains imprisoned on the Island.
“The objective of my protest was to break the silence,” said Robles, because “I did not want to be complicit in the abuses that are committed, in hunger… Someone had to do it.” The young man saw that everyone around him thought like him, but fear prevented them from defending their opinions. He did not consider himself a politician or a leader, just a citizen tired of remaining silent in the face of injustice. “That day I decided to break my fear,” he expresses with a firm voice and gaze, without losing the humility and simplicity that characterize him.
Robles and his mother, Yindra Elizastigui, commented on the call made to them from Cuba by the State Security officer in charge of harassing them. “Where is Luis,” the officer asked him on the phone in a tone of obvious annoyance, although the news of his arrival in Spain was already circulating in independent media and social networks. His mother answered without her voice shaking: “You know, you are already out of Cuba.”
He did not consider himself a politician or a leader, just a citizen tired of remaining silent in the face of injustices.
The officer reproached them for not having notified him directly about the efforts that Robles was making to leave the country. Even though they knew of his intention to leave the Island, they pressured him to have any procedure done through them, to maintain absolute control over his steps. “All the time they threatened my mother with me, and me with her. They made us believe that any word or action could put her back in jail, despite having completed an unjust sentence,” Robles told this newspaper.
The phone call made it clear that officer “Michel” – as he calls himself – had been reprimanded by his superiors for not being able to know in detail every movement of Robles and his family. Although the repressive machinery of the State monitors and controls its targets down to the slightest movement, it does not always work in such a “greased” manner as they try to make us believe.
The officer admitted, in the call, that “everything belongs to them,” referring to Villa Marista and other places where Robles had to go to carry out his exit procedures, but his discomfort was not having been able to properly execute his task of following in his footsteps and finding out everything before his superiors.
Regarding his time in the Combinado del Este prison, Robles says that he defended his position as a political prisoner. He never accepted having committed a crime, but rather exercised and defended a human right. In prison he received threats, punishments and repression, but he also felt the respect of other prisoners who admired his firm stance.
Robles says that he defended his position as a political prisoner. He never accepted having committed a crime, but rather exercised and defended a human right.
Robles, his mother and his son arrived dressed in white, bringing with them the justice of their cause and the commitment to the other political prisoners still in Cuba. His mother, a woman from Guantanamo who does not hesitate to face injustice, cannot stop thinking about her son Léster, who remains imprisoned in Cuba awaiting trial. “In a regime like Cuba’s, any citizen runs the risk of having a crime committed,” he tells us, but he will not rest until Léster and the rest of the victims of the dictatorship are also free.
His mother told how he lived his Way of the Cross in a news conferencethis Wednesday. “My life changed completely since my son Landy started the campaign for the release of Luis Robles. I realized that I was just another prisoner who had to follow orders.” They began to harass her at work, they even went to a niece’s school to ask about Luis. “I was forced to leave my job in Housing in Guantanamo, I had to ask for leave to be able to go to Havana to see my son’s situation, but all these setbacks we went through because of Luis made me grow.”
“Fear predominates in Cuba, but there are many people who are in contact with reality and have discovered that they are outraged and are not afraid,” he added. He also highlighted the role of the family, the damage that silence causes to those in prison. “Many prisoners feel abandoned by the Cubans themselves, they raised their voices for everyone, what better than those Cubans supporting them. We are more than the authorities, than the Police, than State Security.”
José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, also participated online from Miami.
The press conference was organized and moderated by Javier Larrondo, president of the Prisoners Defenders organization. José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), also participated online from Miami, highlighting the value of Luis Robles: “With many young people like you, tyranny does not last a week.” Ferrer was exiled the same day that Robles arrived in Madrid. Javier Nart, member of the European Parliament, and the Spanish lawyer Blas Jesús Imbroda also attended.
A representation of the Cuban exile community gratefully received Robles and his family. Several activists had been discreetly organizing their arrival for months, to prevent the regime from preventing their departure. “I am going to continue fighting for those who remain there, and for Cuba to be free,” said the one who became known as the “young man with the banner” and who is determined to continue raising his voice from Spain.
