Add another name to the long list of prisoners of conscience killed by the Castro regime through abuse and neglect.
In his press conference during the Obama Visit Circus, King Raul bristled uncomfortably when asked about political prisoners, and claimed there were none in his realm.
He also said that if anyone could prove there were any such prisoners, he would free them by the end of that day.
Yeah. Sure, Your Majesty.
You have the list. You have always had the list. You’ve always drawn up the list. You love that list of yours.
And your preferred method of removing names from the list is through murder.
Of course, you don’t shoot these prisoners, as you and your brother and your buddy Che used to.
No. Instead, you find clever ways of disguising your role and of making their deaths look natural.
Combinado del Este
Loosely translated from ABC Spain, with some additional observations added.
Cuban Prisoner of Conscience Dies After Weeks of Medical Neglect
Political prisoner Hamell Santiago Más Hernández, who was only 45 years old, died this past Friday in Havana’s dreaded Combinado del Este prison. He had been behind bars since his arrest on June 3 and was still awaiting trial.
A member of the Unión Patriótica de Cuba (Unpacu), Hamell, reportedly died of a heart attack.
José Daniel Ferrer, a leading Cuban dissident who is also a member of UNPACU, told ABC Spain that the dissident’s death can be attributed to “difficult conditions inside the prison and lack of medical care.” According to Ferrer, the imprisoned Hamell “was sick, very thin, and didn’t receive any medical care.” Ferrer also said that the Combinado del Este prison is plagued by ” constant stress” due to “overcrowding, physical and verbal violence, and poor nutrition.”
Hamell Más Hernández was arrested on June 3 along with another UNPACU activist, Alberto Valle Pérez, as they walked through Old Havana. A few days earlier they had taken part in a peaceful protest in the city. Both men were charged with the crimes of “disrespect” and “public disorder.”
Contact with Hamell had been severely limited before his death, says Ferrer. “They [ Castro regime authorities] cancel our cell phone lines or take away our phones, so that we can’t communicate with each other or with the outside world.”
Combinado del Este
Hamell’s wife, Mildred de la Caridad Reyes, told Martí Noticias that she was able to visit him a few days ago and that he had a kidney infection and “was very thin, and had lost almost 35 pounds in the past three weeks,” even though he had never had any kidney problems before. “The sanitary conditions in that prison are terrible,” she said, “and one can’t even drink the water there.”
Milfred and Hamell embody the Cuban nightmare. In a country praised for its healthcare, they lost a son to tuberculosis in 2015. In a country praised for its “social justice,” they lived in a building that partially collapsed and were evicted shortly after their son’s death. In a country supposedly undergoing economic “reforms,” Hamell and Mildred barely earned a living as “cuentapropistas” — self-employed entrepreneurs who engage in limited-income businesses closely controlled by the government.
According to Elizardo Sánchez, leader of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights (Comisión Cubana de Derechos Humanos –Ccdhrn), there are currently over 100 political prisoners in Castrogonia’s jails. About 55 of these belong to UNPACU, and 21 of those are from Havana. Hamell Santiago Más Hernández was one of these.
