While the Castro dictatorship was getting reelected to the Human Rights Council at the UN, the number of political prisoners in communist Cuba has risen to 1,052, with the majority being subjected to torture. These are just the documented cases, the actual number is certainly higher. Nevertheless, despite its 64-year-long history of brutal oppression, the international community continues to not only ignore the Cuban regime’s crimes against humanity, but reward them.
Number of political prisoners in Cuba: 1,052 at the end of September
The Prisoners Defenders (PD) organization reported that as of the end of September, the Cuban regime held 1,052 political and conscience prisoners in its prisons.
“The Cubans face the terrifying savagery of a regime that has outlawed all freedoms, torturing the 1,052 political and conscience prisoners and their families in Cuba in complete international silence,” stated the NGO in its latest monthly report.
The figures show an increase of seven political prisoners compared to the end of August when 1,045 were reported.
According to Prisoners Defenders, the Cuban dictatorship carries out “a multimodal and multidimensional persecution to put an end to any manifestation of dissent through state terrorism,” and cited the case of three-year-old Leadi Kataleya Naranjo Rillos, daughter of political prisoner Idael Naranjo Pérez, who was subpoenaed to testify.
Another example cited by the NGO is that of Gloria María López Valle, a Cuban sentenced to five years in prison for alleged crimes of public disorder and contempt.
“The regime took away Gloria María’s custody of Nathalie Álvarez López, her 13-year-old daughter. State Security’s Department of Minors is the one ‘taking care’ of the girl because she is the daughter of a prisoner of conscience. She suffers horrible bullying and has already had panic attacks. Because of all this and the absence of her mother, she has attempted suicide,” the report points out.
The organization also emphasized that all political prisoners are “mercilessly tortured every day,” as well as their families, who frequently denounce the inhuman conditions their loved ones endure in prison.
In this regard, the report specifies that the most mistreated groups in prison are minors, young people, women, and the LGBTI community.
Prisoners Defenders further states that “80% of political prisoners suffer at least 5 types of torture” and “not a few endure up to 15 typologies” of abuses encompassed within these practices.
The statement also highlights that since March 2023, the average number of political prisoners added to the NGO’s list is 17 per month, more than three times the average figure recorded from 2018 until July 2021, “a moment when everything changed, as an entire weary population rose up against the repression that causes mistreatment and misery.”
If a significant proportion of the world is OK with what Hamas has just done to Israel, there’s no way it’s going to care about the situation in Cuba, or about the fact Cuba supports the likes of Hamas.