HAVANA.- During the month of January, 13 new political prisoners were counted in Cuba, for a total of 1,066 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience currently on the island, the NGO Prisoners Defenders reported this Wednesday, adding that the processes of these people are characterized by lack of judicial guarantees and due process.
Prisoners Defenders added that in the last 12 months – from February 1, 2023 to January 31, 2024 – 170 new political prisoners were added to their list, an average of more than 14 for each month. “This means that throughout these 12 months a total of 1,236 political prisoners were present on the list,” the NGO said in a statement published on its website.
The organization indicated that political prisoners are “suffering judicial sentences or provisions limiting their freedom by prosecutors without any judicial supervision, due process or effective defense, in flagrant violation of international law.”
Of the 1,066 political prisoners, 33 are minors, 29 of them are still serving their sentences and four are in the middle of criminal proceedings. The NGO clarified that these numbers do not take into account many other minors who have already left the list because they have served their sentences in full.
He stressed that in Cuba minors are held in penitentiary centers, which are euphemistically called “Comprehensive Training Schools”, but they do not depend on the Ministry of Education, but on the Ministry of the Interior.
“In these penitentiary centers with cells, as the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child already denounced on June 9, 2022 in its Report of Conclusions, a minimum of 150 children under 16 years of age are confined each year in Cuba. “, he pointed.
Prisoners Defenders added in its note that the United Nations Committee also noted that some 260 children between 16 and 17 years old “suffer deprivation of liberty in conventional prisons” and noted that “410 minors, therefore, suffer imprisonment each year in Cuba, as the United Nations itself has been able to confirm.”
In its statement, the organization also detailed that 17 of the minors on the list have been convicted of “sedition” and the average sentence is five years of deprivation of liberty, “a punishment on average higher than what they suffered, before the #11J, adults in political prison”. He highlighted that “currently the majority are in home confinement or forced labor without internment.”
Likewise, the NGO indicated that 225 protesters have been charged with sedition, of which some 213 were sentenced to an average of 10 years each.
Women prisoners
Regarding women, Prisoners Defenders stated that currently there are 114 women who pay political and conscientious sentences.
The NGO explained that all trans women “have been and are imprisoned among men, which also happens with common trans prisoners, suffering situations, among men, indescribable for their sexual condition.”
Regarding prisoners with serious illnesses and medical pathologies, Prisoners Defenders identified 214 prisoners in these conditions, although they stressed that they have “been able to confirm” that “all political prisoners” suffer from diseases due to lack of food, mistreatment, repression and lack of medical care. appropriate.
Source: Prisonersdefenders.org
