(EFE).- The Cuban human rights activist Yeilis Torres Cruz, who fled the island last May and is now detained in the US and at risk of deportation, prefers to “die rather than return to Cuba,” according to what she said in a message sent from jail.
The Hispanic channel Univision published this Saturday the message that Torres sent to her husband, Pavel Pérez, from the immigration detention center in Broward County (South Florida), where she has been detained for a week, when she arrived in the US from Guantanamo base.
According to Univision, Torres, a former prosecutor who is a member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), whose leader José Daniel Ferrer has been imprisoned since the protests of July 11, 2021, and is a promoter of Cuba Decide, was accused in 2021 of attacking a public authority for confronting the official broadcaster Humberto López.
She served ten months in prison for that reason, but was cleared of criminal charges in April 2022, according to what she herself told then through her Facebook account.
Her husband, Pavel Pérez, has asked the US government to grant her political asylum and not deport her, “the worst” that could happen to her
Torres Cruz then decided to leave Cuba along with other people aboard a raft that was intercepted by the US Coast Guard and taken to the Guantánamo naval base in Cuba.
She remained there until last Saturday, December 11, when she arrived by air in Fort Lauderdale, 40 km from Miami, and that same day she was arrested and taken to the Broward County immigration center.
The activist, who has denounced “irregularities” in her political asylum case, has an appointment before an immigration judge on January 12.
Her husband, Pavel Pérez, has asked the government of this country to grant her political asylum and not deport her, “the worst” that could happen to her, according to what Torres Cruz said in her call from the Broward detention center.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed in November that 22 Cubans were awaiting “resettlement in a third country” at the Guantánamo base, including Yeilis Torres Cruz.
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