Lizandra Gongora, a political prisoner in Cuba serving 14 years for peacefully protesting on July 11, 2021, was transferred to a prison nearly 100 miles away from her home in Havana with the express purpose of further separating her from her family. Brutality and cruelty is not a bug of socialism, but a feature.
Via CiberCuba (my translation):
Lizandra Gongora has gone months without seeing her children since she was transferred to a prison on the Isle of Youth
Political prisoner Lizandra Góngora has not seen her children for months after she was transferred to a prison on the Isle of Youth, as reported by a human rights organization in Cuba.
“Political prisoner Lizandra Góngora Espinosa denounces that her exile continues, far from her family, and asks for help to spread the news of this terrible situation,” tweeted the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.
The organization also shared a message from the political prisoner in which she expresses her sadness because it has been “four months” since she last saw her children after being forcibly moved to a prison on the Isle of Youth, 160 kilometers away from her home.
“They have threatened to send me to Guantánamo or Pinar del Río,” she added.
“I believe this is an injustice because my residence has been in Havana for 14 years, so I should be imprisoned there. I won’t allow them to take me to another prison that is not where I belong,” Góngora also stated.
She also pleaded for help in denouncing the injustices of the Castro dictatorship and all its puppets, in addition to exposing the hunger and neglect she experiences in the prison where she is detained.
Góngora commented that the regime does whatever it pleases with political prisoners and keeps her there as they wish, subjecting her to hunger and misery, and turning all the other inmates against her.
“I’m not safe here. I ask you, please, to help me return to Havana and make all the relevant denunciations,” concludes the political prisoner’s message.
In April of this year, Góngora was transferred to a prison on the Isle of Youth, 160 kilometers away from her home, as reported by the organization Cubalex.
Until then, Góngora had been serving a 14-year sentence at the women’s prison of Guatao, in La Lisa, Havana, for her participation in the protests on July 11, 2021, in Güira de Melena, Artemisa province.
With this transfer, however, her family can only visit her by boat or plane, as denounced by the organization that supports political prisoners on the island.
The transfer of the political opponent may be related to her activism from prison, as well as the continuous denunciations by her family, especially by her ex-husband, the opposition figure Ángel Delgado.
In August of last year, the Cuban activist stated in an audio message from prison that her lengthy sentence demonstrates the regime’s fear of dissenters in the country.
“I was sentenced to 14 years of prison, and I won’t deny that I’m sad because I miss my little ones, but I don’t feel defeated; on the contrary, I feel stronger and filled with more hatred against these terrorists,” she expressed.
As a mother of five children, she was forcibly disappeared shortly after her arrest and has suffered abuse and mistreatment in prison.
The Military Prosecutor’s Office of Artemisa, which handled the activist’s case, kept Góngora in legal limbo since her detention in July 2021, not revealing the charges against her until the middle of March 2022.
Góngora was accused of sabotage, burglary, and public disorder, alongside independent journalist Jorge Bello Domínguez, as alleged perpetrators of the attack on the La Imprenta dollar store in Güira de Melena during the protests on July 11. Bello Domínguez was sentenced to 15 years in prison in the same case.