Doctor arrested for attempted illegal departure from Cuba released

The doctor from SantiagoElioney Rodríguez Alcántara He was released after spending 13 days in prison for an alleged attempt to illegally leave Cuba.

The young doctor offered an interview toCubanet where he said that he received mistreatment in prison and humiliation.

"I was mistreated, humiliated, like all my classmates. I feel that my life is in danger, my life and that of my family in this country. They are going to try to fabricate any complaint against me. I am afraid of losing my freedom," commented the young man.

He explained that he was initially detained in theArtemisa National Revolutionary Police (PNR) station where he was hungry and cold. He was there for seven days and then he was transferred to another location where he spent three days with the same conditions.

Then it wasredirected to Santiago de Cuba and finally to thepolice station of the San Luis municipality, where there is an open complaint against him by a Lieutenant Colonel.

The doctor explained that some people detained with him became ill due to the cold and humidity of the prison. The young man assures thatlost 20 kilograms of weight in just two weeks.

Rodriguez isinternal Medicine specialist, is a sonographer and certified in clinical and interventional cardiology. Some time ago he was disqualified from practicing his profession in Cuba and although he tried to appeal the sanction, the regime did not respond to his request.

"It was to fulfill my duty, to be next to the patient and give him the proper diet. After I was notified of the ministerial resolution that disqualifies me throughout the national territory from practicing my profession, I wrote to the municipal, provincial, and national Prosecutor's Office. "I sent letters to the minister, I wrote letters to President Miguel Díaz-Canel (...) I never had any response of any kind," he said.

The Cuban doctor made aapplication for political asylum and alleged that he is afraid for his life in Cuba after having been imprisoned and after being threatened by the San Luis police for having two complaints against him, one related to an allegedly incorrectly granted diet and another for an attempt to illegally leave the country.

Rodríguez's case became known at the end of January when his motherBlanca Nieves Alcántara Chacón, denounced the young man's detention and said that his son was not a criminal but "a health professional, a doctor, a trained person" whom the regime was mistreating and repressing.