Luis Robles' mother: "They are mistreating my son"

Yindra Elizástegui, mother of Cuban political prisoner Luis Robles, broke the silence on social networks to denounce the mistreatment of the young man in prison, where he is serving afive year sentence for protesting with a sign on a central street in Havana.

Robles, convicted of the crimes of enemy propaganda, contempt and disobedience, was forced to leave his cell in the early morning hours and undress in an office in front of leaders of the Combinado del Este prison and members of State Security.

He was then photographed without clothes, the woman reported in a video uploaded to her Facebook profile.

"Recently my son informed me that they took him out of the cell and took him to an office with more people, prison leaders and members of state security and others and forced him to take off his clothes. He refused, He said that he was not going to take it off because that was not in any law, and they told him that if you don't take it off we will take it off. He had to take off his clothes and they photographed him with a cell phone from the front and back," he explained.

She assures that after learning of the incident, she made a complaint to the Citizenship Office of the MININT in Guantánamo, where she belongs, and they responded that this situation occurred "due to an investigation into a publication made by a newspaper that Luis Robles had been beaten." . "The response from the Citizenship Office was that those photos were to show the world that my son had no traces of physical abuse on his body," she stressed.

"The complaint (in the aforementioned media outlet) related to physical abuse and that he was placed in a punishment cell for five days, something that I believe because he was previously in prison.seven to nine days in a punishment cell that almost cost him his life and where he shed his skin," explained Elizástegui.

"I believe in my son, because he is the one inside there, and I have proof that they have gone to extremes with my son," he added.

"I feel outraged, with what is happening with my son. Coming to the networks is the only way for them to listen to me. My son has been incarcerated for a year and six months for carrying a sign. Five years of unjust sentence," Elizástegui stressed .

He said this is not the first time Robles has been subjected to abuse like this. "My son has been abused physically and psychologically, my son informs me that every time someone feels like it, abusing his position and power, he takes him out of his cell at 2 or 3 in the morning until 6 in the morning. the morning," he explained.

The woman assures that although it is her first time on social networks, she has never sat idly by every time her son tells her about these abuses. "I realized that the authorities do not pay attention to the complaints, nor to what the people say," he said.

Likewise, she defends that she raised her children with humility, with love and with respect. "My children are loved in the neighborhood where they grew up because they are educated and good men," he argued. Robles is a computer engineer and has a young son.

In December 2020, the young man held up a sign on San Rafael Boulevard in Central Havana demanding "Freedom." A video shows the moment of arrest, where the police subdued the young man who was demonstrating alone. Since then, an odyssey of torture, recounted by himself from the Combinado del Este, where he is being held, began.

At the end of April, the political prisoner reported that he was the victim of a beating and that he was then transferred for no reason to a punishment cell. On that occasion he also gave statements to that independent media in which he explained that an officer identified as Ramoncito rebuked him and hit him on the head.

Thephysical violence against you It came in retaliation for his constant complaints against the mistreatment that he and other prisoners receive at the Combinado del Este. He has also criticized the poor hygiene and food conditions of the precinct.

At the beginning of the previous month, Robles Elizástigui's lawyer presented aappeal before the Supreme Court of Cuba against the five-year prison sentence imposed on his client.

The case of the young political prisoner has been the subject of criticism of the government by different international organizations. The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) criticized the sentence imposed by the Court and pointed out that the criminal process was full of irregularities, since "judges at the service of the Communist Party of Cuba unjustly punished a young Cuban for exercising his rights to free manifestation and expression".