From our Bureau of Socialist Compassion, Tolerance and Social Justice
How dare she complain! Off with her head! The mother of an imprisoned July 11 protester dared to stage a one-woman protest of her own at a Ministry of Fear office, calling attention to the mistreatment her son is receiving. Such effrontery. The response she received from the Ministry was predictable: “This is not how you will solve your problem; we will make it more difficult for you.” Yeah. This is socialism, lady; shut your trap and go home, or we’ll dole out more punishment to your son. The more you complain, the more miserable his life in prison will become.
Loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
The mother of political prisoner Brusnelvis Cabrera Gutiérrez, Migdalia Gutiérrez, was threatened this Thursday by an official from the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) after she stood with a sign in front of the Directorate of Penitentiary Establishments in Havana, demanding the fulfillment of basic penal rights for her son, Gutiérrez reported in a live broadcast through her Facebook profile.
The officer, with the rank of major in the repressive organs of the regime, threatened her with the phrase “This is not how you will solve your problem; we will make it more difficult for you.”
“I am his mother and I have the right, all the right that they are violating, it touches his minimum and they don’t give it to him. Here I am, standing my ground,” the woman said in front of the institution, energetically demanding that her son be granted the minimum sentence in the imposed conviction.
“I do not want threats against anyone in my family or against me. I will continue to stand up, I don’t mince words, I have a pair of strong guts. I won’t stop, I am his mother and I am within my right until the day I die and even after death I am still his mother,” Gutiérrez wrote on her Facebook profile.
“I continue to accuse State Security, which is behind all these violations with our political prisoner sons, and I also want to make it known that I am still standing at my house and the doors are open to anyone who identifies with my son’s cause and that of the political prisoners,” she said in another post on the same social network.
Cabrera Gutiérrez was arrested in La Güinera when he was 20 years old. Initially, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the political crime of sedition. Subsequently, when authorities reduced many sentences in appeal trials, Cabrera Gutiérrez’s sentence was only reduced by five years. With a sentence of ten years, he remained under a stricter regime.
In prison, he has stood up more than once and has carried out several actions in response to mistreatment and repression. In August 2023, for example, he went on a hunger strike and refused to wear the prison uniform.
On that occasion, his mother wrote on her Facebook profile: “Today my son Brusnelvis Cabrera Gutiérrez is celebrating 23 years of life and he is standing up against another false crime they want to impose on him. My son, that day will come, and the day when this murderous and cruel dictatorship will fall is near, you are my example. My brave beloved boy, today I write these words with tears in my eyes and a broken heart, and I demand only your freedom, that enough of so many tortures. Don’t play with a mother’s pain anymore.”