Cuban dictatorship denies mutual visits to imprisoned father-and-daughter dissidents

From our Bureau of Socialist Tolerance, Compassion, and Social Justice

Felix Navarro and his daughter Saylí were given long prison terms for participating in the 11 July 2021 protests. Both have been declared prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International and were awarded the Patmos Prize this week. Castro, Inc. couldn’t care less about such recognition. As usual, such recognition only serves to make Castro, Inc. angrier and more determined to make the lives of such prisoners as painful as possible. Father and daughter are held in different prisons and are being denied to visit each other.

Loosely translated from Marti Noticias

Cuban activist and political prisoner Saylí Navarro denounced this week the prolonged suspension of inter-prison visits with her father, the opposition and political leader Félix Navarro, who is serving a sentence in the Agüica prison in Matanzas.

Saylí, who is also in prison on political charges, sent an audio message to Martí Noticias from the Matanzas women’s prison, known as La Bellotex, where she detailed the situation.

According to Saylí, Monday, October 21, marked 45 days since the last scheduled inter-prison visit with her father. In the message, she explained that her transfer was scheduled for Friday, October 25 to meet him again; however, a failure in the only means of transportation available in the Bellotex prison prevented the meeting from taking place.

“Friday the 25th was the day of the trial of one of the inmates who has been here in provisional prison for a long time and who is from the municipality of Colón,” Saylí recounted in the audio.

“They left very early in the only means of transport that the inmates have here in the Matanzas Women’s Prison, La Bellotex, but the trial could not be held because the transport broke down when they were arriving, they were already in the municipality of Jovellanos. They did not say anything to me and they did not take me in my father’s car. On Friday it was precisely 49 days since the drive,” concluded the activist.

Félix Navarro, a well-known 71-year-old opposition member and founder of the “Pedro Luis Boitel” Party for Democracy, is serving a nine-year prison sentence, this being his third conviction for political reasons.

His daughter is a member of the Ladies in White movement and is serving an eight-year prison sentence. Father and daughter were convicted on charges of attack and public disorder, related to their participation in the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021, which spread throughout Cuba.

The two were recently declared prisoners of conscience by the organization Amnesty International and were awarded the Patmos Prize this week.

Sonia Álvarez Campillo, Saylí’s mother and Félix Navarro’s wife, also denounced the suspension of phone calls between the two prisoners, a right that, until now, they had every 15 days.

“The phone call between Félix and Saylí has ??been due for more than 15 days and they have not given it to them,” said Sonia. “They are not demanding anything else, nothing more than their right.”