“It coincided that Yuri’s father, a resident of the United States, was in Cuba and he went with me to prison. They put him and his brother in a prison office for almost two hours with political police agents. I was not allowed to be present. Later they let me enter. At that moment the agents went out, according to them, to look for Yuri in his cell. After half an hour, Lieutenant Colonel Pedro, from State Security, returned to tell us that we would only be able to speak with Yuri by phone.”
According to Eralidis, the officers told Valle Roca’s family that they were not going to allow the in-person visit because the independent journalist refused to put on the prison uniform. “At that moment my wires crossed and I began to demonstrate. After receiving threats of jail against me and beatings for Yuri, they let us see him, although for a very short time. They denied me the right to a complete visit, in addition to the fact that it took place in an office that they call protocol.”
Yuri’s wife reports that he suffers from several illnesses, but the prison authorities deny him medical attention. “Physically he is very deteriorated, getting thinner every day, he has spent several months without access to his medicines and he is not provided with specialized medical treatment.”
Subsequently, the independent journalist was taken under an impressive security device to the Institute of Legal Medicine, on Avenida Boyeros and Calle 26, next to the Joaquín Albarrán hospital. “It seemed like they were going to bring in a notorious terrorist. State Security asked us to turn off cell phones. This was filled with police and insurance,” said a worker at the place.
Why did they take Valle Roca to Forensic Medicine and not to a hospital to treat his health problems? I asked his wife. “He was taken there, because on October 30, 2022 I submitted a Request for Extra Criminal License for various health problems. Now we have to wait 30 days for the results of the expert report to come out and see what answer they give me. On Friday, January 26, I was notified, without any argument, that his next conjugal visit was suspended,” Eralidis responded.
Lázaro Yuri’s health has worsened since he was arrested on June 14, 2021 for filming and publishing on social networks a video where several opponents were observed throwing leaflets with phrases from José Martí and Antonio Maceo from the roof of a building in the Central Havana municipality. A year later, in July 2022, in a process without legal guarantees, Yuri was sentenced to five years in prison for the alleged crimes of “continued enemy propaganda and resistance.”
The Popular Provincial Court of Havana considered that the Delibera organization, to which Valle Roca belonged, was “illegal.” Along with the activist Alien Tijerino Castro, he was also accused of holding meetings “with the objective of planning actions contrary to the social and political system in Cuba.” In October 2022, Eralidis Frómeta warned that her husband had developed a type of tumor in his head. The following month, the political prisoner was urgently admitted to the Combinado del Este prison hospital.
There Frómeta was informed that they had given her antibiotic treatment and she was able to verify that the injuries that Lázaro Yuri had on his head had improved. “He could have been in a serious condition with danger to his life, since his mood was almost gone. Due to the severe headaches and cramps he could barely move his head, not to mention two types of tumors that had appeared in an area attached to his brain,” Eralidis recalls.
At the beginning of 2023, Valle Roca was diagnosed with hypertension. His wife reported that he was in a critical state of health and was not receiving the medical attention she needed for her vision loss, which had increased. “I received a call from Yuri, and he told me that he was feeling very bad because tumors had grown close to his brain again.” It was when Eralidis presented a request to the Attorney General’s Office in which he requested that the dissident journalist be placed in a minimal severity regime, due to his precarious state of health.
Valle Roca supported his wife’s complaint in a phone call with Radio Televisión Martí and added that his transfer to a camp had been approved and signed for months by the prison management. “After a heated discussion, the prosecutor understood that she had to accept my statement, which was brief and simple: the blame for not being given benefits in prison or for everything that happens to me or for not being transferred to a camp. It belongs to the political police and Raúl Castro,” Lázaro Yuri stated then.
The lawsuit was filed before the Attorney General’s Office by Eralidis on February 6, 2023 and was directed at the penitentiary centers in Cuba. The following month, he was told that Valle Roca had been denied transfer to the minimum severity regime because he had not been “re-educated.” But on September 4, 2022, Lázaro Yuri received his first pass and was able to stay at his house for three days. Of that stay, Eralidis says that “it was very sad, very painful, very strong, to see the conditions of dehydration in which he arrived.” His family took advantage and took him to the hospital to be examined for the vision loss he suffers from, but the equipment was not available.
On October 4, 2023, Frómeta reported that her husband had been beaten by Combinado del Este guards. “Lieutenant Iran, second head of the prison, took Yuri to a board of directors, I don’t know the reasons. When he arrived he wanted Yuri to stand at attention. But he did not. Right there, the officer ordered Yuri to be handcuffed and, together with another of his hitmen, they beat him.”
Eralidis has been denouncing her husband’s deteriorating health for two and a half years and that he has not received adequate medical care for the illnesses he contracted in prison. Various international organizations defending human rights and the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) have warned about the deterioration of the independent journalist’s health and have demanded his immediate release.
“With total impunity for its actions, Cuba continues to violate international precepts on the human rights of those imprisoned to receive medical care, dignified treatment and enjoy a fair legal process,” said Jorge Canahuati, president of the IAPA.
Yuri is the grandson of Blas Roca Calderío, leader of the Communist-oriented Popular Socialist Party, and one of the most important leaders in Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. Roca Calderío, who died in 1987, was one of the editors of the 1976 Constitution, a carbon copy of the Stalinist Magna Carta of 1936; In 1974 he was in charge of the implementation of the organs of Popular Power in the country and in 1976 he was the first president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, a parliament that unanimously approves all its decrees.
A lawyer consulted by Diario Las Américas considers that in the Valle Roca file “due process has not been followed and political guidelines have weighed more than legal ones. Cases like yours are only criminally sanctioned in totalitarian regimes where the courts are not independent of the State and there is no presumption of innocence or Habeas Corpus. It is a case that does not even carry an administrative fine. Sanctioning him to five years in prison was a legal aberration, but above all an exemplary measure of punishment to intimidate other Cubans who post protesting videos on social networks. In addition to an unfair and disproportionate sanction, Lázaro Yuri’s rights as a prisoner are being violated. “As this is the first time that he has been imprisoned, and since he has already served half of his sentence, he should have been released.”
Meanwhile, after 31 months in prison, Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca’s health continues to deteriorate. Eralidis Frómeta, his wife, fears the worst.
