The Cuban political prisoner Luis Miguel Oña Jiménez, a demonstrator from July 11 in Havana, died this past weekend in Havana at the young age of 27.
According to a report from the organization Prisoners Defenders, the young man, who was serving a 12-year prison sentence for a sedition offense, was released on provisional license just days before his death after suffering from ischemia.
"You know that they give extrapenal licenses to people when they are about to die," an activist reported in a recording that is circulating on social media.
Oña Jiménez was in the prison of Panama, in the municipality of Güines, Mayabeque, where HIV/AIDS patients are held.
During the more than four years he spent in prison, with no medical care, poor nutrition, and mistreatment, his health gradually deteriorated until he suffered a cerebral ischemia that left him in critical condition, unable to move his mouth, hands, or feet.
"They granted him the extrapenal license and had sent him to Julio Trigo hospital, which is close to his home. From there, the hospital declared him terminal, sent him home three days ago, and he died," the complainant emphasized.
The activist Avana de la Torre expressed her regret in a message on Facebook, where she accused the dictatorship of having released him from prison when his condition was already irreversible.
"It was not a natural death. It was the direct consequence of a cruel, negligent, and repressive prison system that punishes, abandons, and allows to die those who dare to demand freedom. They released him not to save him, but to avoid publicly taking responsibility for his death in custody," he said.
"Releasing him when he was already seriously ill is not clemency. It is cover-up. It is a repeated practice of the regime: letting the prisoner out when they are on the brink of death to avoid having to deal with the corpse inside the prison," he emphasized.
Luis Miguel was one of the hundreds of Cubans who took to the streets of La Güinera neighborhood, Arroyo Naranjo municipality in July 2021, where he lived, to demand freedom. He was arrested the following day and did not return until now.
Accused of the crime of sedition, he was sentenced by the Provincial Court of Havana to 14 years in prison.
In June 2022, during the cassation trial held in the Court of Crimes Against State Security of the Supreme Court, this ordered a reduction of his sentence by two years, taking into account Oña Jiménez's age: just 23 years old.
According to Prisoners Defenders, in January 2026, the number of political prisoners in Cuba reached 1,207, after the confirmation of 18 new prisoners of conscience.
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