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The activist Salomé García Bacallao, coordinator of the group Justicia 11J, publicly denounced this Sunday a new case of sexual assault against a protester from 11J held in the Guanajay prison, directly pointing to three officers from the facility as being responsible for allowing it to happen with complete impunity.
According to the report, this is the second time that the inmate Roberto Valdés Alonso, known as "the stutterer from San José" and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison, has sexually assaulted a political prisoner in that facility with the complicity of the prison authorities.
The three designated officers are Major Javier Reboso Pérez, from State Security; Lieutenant Colonel Emilio Guilarte Ramírez, known as "The Illustrious" and the second-in-command of the prison; and Lieutenant Colonel Guillermo Cordero Monduy, nicknamed "William Tell," who was on vacation at the time of the events.
The complaint includes a message attributed to Major Reboso in which he mockingly acknowledges his responsibility: “tell the fool that he is finishing off the boys from July 11.”
The victim is a young protester whose identity has not been revealed to protect his family. According to García Bacallao, he was chemically subdued before the assault and remains in the medical unit of the prison in a state of shock, suffering from severe physical and psychological impacts.
The direct precedent is the case of the political prisoner Julián Mazola, who was deliberately placed in the same cell as Valdés Alonso by Major Reboso as retaliation for refusing to collaborate with State Security.
Regarding Guilarte Ramírez, the activist is emphatic: "Emilio is an abuser who takes pleasure in beating and denigrating prisoners, even with verbal sexual violence."
Additionally, it identifies him as one of those responsible for the torture of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died on February 23, 2010 after more than 80 days of hunger strike while being held in Guanajay, among other prisons.
Gordero Monduy, for his part, has a documented history of repression noted by human rights defenders since at least 2005 in that same prison, with accusations of being responsible for the deaths of several inmates and of working in collusion with the Provincial Court of Artemisa to create charges against opponents.
García Bacallao emphasizes that "this practice of allowing sexual abuses in prisons is historical and systematic in Cuba," documented by Human Rights Watch since its report in 1999.
The context is one of sustained repression: at least 760 political prisoners from 11J remain incarcerated in Cuba according to Justicia 11J, while the total number of political prisoners reaches 1,250 individuals according to Prisoners Defenders.
The conditions in Guanajay have been repeatedly reported: a report from June 2025 documented 160 allegations of torture in Cuban prisons during the first half of the year, including 104 cases of denial of medical care.
"In the Guanajay prison, there are more than a dozen political prisoners at risk. NO MORE IMPUNITY!" concludes García Bacallao in his statement.
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