Cuban independent journalist Jose Luis Tan was riding on a bus when State Security agents arrested him. He was taken to the infamous Villa Marista, where he was threatened, interrogated, and tortured for five days.
Via ADN Cuba (my translation):
Jose Luis Tan denounces the regime’s threats: ‘You’re going to rot in here, worm’
Jose Luis Tan Estrada, a young Cuban journalist and graduate of the University of Camagüey, was released on May 1st after five days of forced imprisonment. He is now denouncing the regime’s threats during that time.
In an interview with the independent news outlet Cubanet, the journalist and activist recounted how he was detained on a bus near Havana, and what happened next after being transferred to the Villa Marista center used for oppression.
“They say to me ‘you are José Luis Tan Estrada,’ and they ask for my ID, while the other police officer at the same time puts handcuffs on me and tells me that I am detained by State Security for the crime of being a mercenary and false information (…) to make people react. I said ‘this is for telling the truth,’ but no one dared say anything,” he recounted.
The former professor at the University of Camagüey detailed that during the journey to Villa Marista, he was forced to remain with his head between his legs and was threatened with charges of “disobedience or contempt” if he tried to lift it or say a word.
“At Villa Marista, I was locked in an isolation cell, where the sunlight never enters. You don’t know if it’s day or night. There are two permanent lamps on, big ones, that they don’t turn off to sleep. I was totally disoriented. Because you ask them the time and they don’t tell you,” he said.
Tan Estrada revealed that he was interrogated five or six times a day and accused of transporting bulletins and stickers to Havana, to incite people not to attend regime activities on May 1st.
“I only had a small backpack with my basic things, because I planned to return that same Friday or Saturday (…) The threats to cease my humanitarian work were always present in the interrogations. According to them, the oppressors, my intention with my humanitarian aid is to politically subvert those people,” he added.
The independent journalist revealed that State Security at Villa Marista proposed to him several times to leave the country, because in Cuba they wouldn’t let him be anyone.
“I felt a lot of fear and thought they were going to leave me there. That place is made for repression (…) It’s psychological torture, from the jailer, everyone is a piece of garbage. They feel immune in there. One, who I believe was a captain, told me, ‘you’re going to rot in here, worm,’ he concluded.
Tan Estrada was released by the Cuban regime in the morning of May 1st. The political police sent the reporter on a bus to the city of Camagüey, where he resides, and imposed a fine of 4,000 pesos after five days of interrogation at Villa Marista.
But it’s OK, because all is permitted to preserve the dictatorship, I mean the “revolution.”