Conditions in the communist Castro dictatorship’s gulags are horrific for all who are imprisoned there, but for Cubans with disabilities, it is even more abominable. This is socialism in action.
Via Martí Noticias (my translation):
Prison conditions for two disabled inmates from the July 11 protests are denounced
Relatives of two political prisoners sentenced for the July 11, 2021 protests have warned that the difficulties they face in prison are even harder due to their physical disabilities.
Dariel Ruiz García is forced to serve two and a half years in Camp Paraíso, in Güines, despite having difficulties walking and seeing.
“My brother is missing his left leg, and he also has visual impairment. The conditions in Cuban prisons are chaotic for a normal person, let alone for someone with physical disabilities. It’s challenging to live there in the penitentiary… during bathroom time, there are no proper conditions, and the food is also terrible,” warned his brother, Janiel Ruiz García, from South Florida.
The resident of the town of Aguacate in the municipality of Madruga, in the province of Mayabeque, was judicially processed for the crimes of public disorder and resistance following his participation in the protests.
In Cuba, he only has his father, who is terminally ill with cancer, and a cousin who tries to bring him food and medicine, despite fearing the pressures from the State Security, explained his brother.
The brother doubted the transparency of the judicial process and described Dariel’s sentence as unjust.
“Show me a single piece of evidence that my brother deserves that sentence because there is no evidence. I have the video of the demonstration, which was peaceful. I witnessed the trial because I traveled to Cuba because I wanted to see, and it was all a circus. They used three policemen from Madruga. The police statement was false; they claimed my brother had resisted, but it was all a lie because my brother is physically disabled and handcuffed, how could he resist? So they don’t release him because that’s how this criminal dictatorship operates,” Dariel concluded.
On its website, Cuba’s Supreme Court of Justice states that the request for the benefit of parole is applicable only when half of the imposed sentence has been served in the case of first-time prisoners.
Another alarming case is the one that has been reported in a live video on social media by Etelvina Rodríguez and Carol Martín Rodríguez, mother and sister of July 11th political prisoner Dayron Martín Rodríguez, who is also a psychiatric patient and now faces a serious health problem.
In the video, the women warned that the 37-year-old protester, sentenced to 22 years for the crime of sedition after participating in the popular protest in La Güinera, in the municipal district of Arroyo Naranjo in the capital city, has not received medical assistance to treat a bleeding ulcer. They also expressed concern that he is being kept in a maximum-security prison despite the recommendations of three experts.
“He feels very ill, he has been unable to eat for many days due to his stomach ulcer, to the point that he is now vomiting blood, and we are very worried because we know that the ulcer could rupture at any moment. They told him that the equipment at the hospital where he was supposed to undergo an endoscopy was broken, but there are other hospitals where he could be taken, yet they don’t want to take him,” said Dayron’s sister.
In the same denunciation, his mother stated they are also not providing him with the medications for his mental condition.
“His treatment for schizophrenia and anxiety, with so many medications he has to take, he can’t take them because they neither give them to him there nor take him to see a doctor, nor do they allow him to receive medications from outside the prison, so there is no option,” warned Dayron’s mother.
On September 15th of the previous year, Dayron was taken to the Forensic Medicine Center along with other common prisoners who were evaluated for the process of claiming parole.
Due to his status as a political prisoner, he was the only one denied by the prosecution to receive parole, despite the recommendation of three doctors from the Institute of Forensic Medicine in the capital who examined him.
In the Combinado del Este prison in Havana, they have suspended his phone calls with his mother and sister, who reside in Quito, Ecuador.