PRESS RELEASE
Mother of a young Cuban sentenced to 30 years in prison denounces the lack of adequate medical care in the Combinado del Este Prison for her son’s psychiatric condition.
Washington, DC, February 1, 2022
Contacts: John Suarez (612) 367-6845
Janisset Rivero (786) 208-6056
Dayron Martin Rodríguez y su madre Esmeralda Rodríguez
Center for a Free Cuba (CFC). Dayron Martin Rodríguez was sentenced to 30 years in prison for having participated in the massive protests in La Güinera, Havana on July 12, 2021. His mother, Esmeralda Rodríguez, denounced her son's medical condition from the first moments of his detention for having serious psychiatric problems that require medication.
“In Cien y Aldabó they kept him for ten days, they didn't even let him call, they didn't let him be seen. After that time, a soldier called his wife and informed her that he had been transferred to Combinado del Este, which is where he has been for seven months. My son has psychiatric problems. He spent many years in the San Juan de Dios hospital and there he has his psychiatric file. He was unable to work for years, or do anything, he attempted suicide. Today he still had sporadic consultations, he had treatment that the doctor was evaluating, and he was like that for a while until he was imprisoned. He can't stop taking the drugs for any reason, he has to take them for life. But they didn't give him the drugs. My daughter-in-law went to all the places, the Plaza de la Revolución, Calzada and K, to complain. They started giving him the medicine but he called a fortnight ago and said they weren't giving him the medicine, that they were giving him another medicine. They can't give him any other medicine. He is in a cell with nine other prisoners, common prisoners.”, Rodríguez affirmed in a recording from Ecuador where she is in exile.
She also denounced the subhuman conditions in the prison cell in which her son lives, and that in the cold conditions that exist in Cuba at the moment, they do not allow them to keep warm, which has made him sick due to his allergies.
Dayron Martín Rodríguez was prosecuted on December 20th along with 19 other Cubans who participated in the spontaneous protests in July in La Güinera. His sentence of 30 years in prison for the alleged crime of Sedition was issued on December 23rd.
“I am not afraid and neither is he. I publish every day, I share everything for the improvement of my son and with the hope that something happens and he and all the others who are unjustly there can be freed. It is a crime that they have given him 30 years,” she stated.
The Center for a Free Cuba raises its voice in favor of the release of Dayron Martín Rodríguez. His imprisonment is doubly arbitrary due to his psychiatric condition and due to the application of the crime of Sedition to a civilian for simply participating in a popular protest.
The regime in Havana violates the minimum rules for the treatment of detainees, established by the United Nations and signed by the communist regime in Cuba.
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