The Cuban political prisoner Yosvany Aróstegui Armentero passed away last week at a hospital in Camaguey after several months in the Kilo 7 prison, where he went on a 40-day hunger strike in protest against the charges that the regime imposed on him after the protests of July 2021. In the last hours, up to fourteen Cuban political prisoners distributed in various prisons for their participation in the historic spontaneous demonstrations that shook the island in 2021 have started a hunger strike. One of them is Yosvany Rosell Garcia, who has been demanding the release of all political prisoners on the island for 15 years.
This situation occurs in the midst of the visit to Cuba of the High Representative of the EU, Josep Borrell, to attend the third joint Council between the EU and Havana, established by the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement of 2016. This agreement put an end to the so-called European “common position” promoted twenty years ago by the then president Jose Maria Aznar to isolate the Castro regime. Borrell’s intention is to deepen the EU’s relations with Cuba and with a view to the summit with the block of countries of the CELAC in Brussels on July 17 and 18.
The hunger strike is a clear wake-up call to the European Union to put pressure on the government of Miguel Diaz-Canel to release political prisoners. According to a report from the NGO Prisoners Defender, the Cuban government holds 1,048 political prisoners. “Far from diminishing, the repression in Cuba is increasing and portends a bad end for a pressure cooker that demands freedom and rights and that the regime is unable to control”, maintains this organization, which for years has been monitoring the policy of repression on the island.
Relatives of political prisoners of 11J have joined the movement Mourning Cuba to continue with the campaign for the freedom of those who participated in the protests of July 2021. The organization Justicia 11J estimates that the total number of detainees for their participation in the events is 1,540. detention, of which 730 have already been tried. Among them is Luis Armando Cruz Aguilera“illegally detained”, according to Prisoner Defenders, for participating in the demonstrations in Havana has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for “sedition”.
Since the trials of the 11J protesters began, human rights activists and various NGOs have denounced the lack of guarantees, the fabrication of evidence and the excessive sentences in these processes. The political prisoner Maikel Puig-Bergolla He told his wife in a phone call from the Quivicán prison that he was on a hunger strike: “What I told you yesterday was all a lie, it’s all a hoax, they don’t let you call here, they are putting pressure here, they are doing all that here. Here the Police are doing what comes out of the p…”, Puig Bergolla said to his wife, according to an audio that is circulating on social networks.
According to Mourning Cuba, The list of prisoners on hunger strike is made up of José Rodríguez Herrada, Roberto Pérez Fonseca, Aníbal Yasiel Palau Jacinto, Maikel Puig Bergolla, Duniesky Ruiz Cañizarez, Juan Enrique Pérez Sánchez, Manuel Velázquez Licea, Lidier Ramón Hernández Urbita, Nilo Abrante Santiago, Yasiel Martínez Carrasco, Carlos Ernesto Díaz González, Abel Lázaro Machado Conde and Williams Valera Suárez.
The death of Yosvany Aróstegui – a member of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo Resistance Front– has raised a wave of indignation inside and outside Cuba. the cuban artist Tania Bruguera called for an action on social networks in support of the island’s political prisoners.
Borrell announced this Friday in Havana that the European Union will possibly hold a dialogue on human rights with Cuba at the end of this year. The high representative of the EU stressed that the “desire” of the bloc is “accompany Cuba in its process of opening up, of economic and social reforms, from a relationship of mutual respect, to cooperate in improving the lives of all Cubans”.
