The Cuban writer and editor Dulce María Sotolongo posted a message on Facebook this Saturday in which she denounces that her son has been imprisoned for three years in Cuba without a trial, which she describes as a systematic denial of due process.
"My son, who has been imprisoned for three years without trial and is constantly denied due process, as if he had killed someone or committed a crime against state security, has seen his lawyer perhaps once during this time, and only in a rush," wrote Sotolongo.
The lawyer hired by the family has not only visited the young man on rare occasions, but he also did not intervene on the day the trial was suspended.
"On the day of the trial that was postponed, I didn’t hear his voice. He could have mentioned that my son had a minor in his care or that his behavior in prison was good, or who knows how many legal loopholes to at least get him out of there," the mother lamented.
With bitter irony, Sotolongo points out that it was a public defender—not a paid attorney—who managed to temporarily halt the proceedings by identifying a technicality arising from poor work by the prosecution.
"God bless public defenders. They have nothing to lose, and one of them, a girl, was able to stop a trial due to a technicality, poor work by the prosecution, but now those who are suffering are the ones who have had a lawyer since the beginning of their process," he wrote.
Sotolongo, with nearly four decades of experience as an editor, draws a parallel between her professional life and the distress she experiences as a mother.
"As an editor, I have never been offended in nearly forty years of my profession when a writer correctly calls to ask me something; I understand the anxiety that publishing a book can cause, but it is not vital. The freedom of a human being is. One day in prison counts," she stated.
The writer describes the exhaustion of an endless wait: she tries not to disturb the lawyer, keeps her distance from journalists, and feels that the authorities are completely ignoring her.
"I no longer care if one day they make me disappear or threaten me, things that have never happened. Of course, they ignore me. I don't exist," he wrote.
The case is part of a pattern of prolonged detentions without judicial process that human rights organizations have extensively documented in Cuba.
Justice 11J reported in April 2026 that 775 individuals remained as political prisoners on the island, 338 of whom were linked to the protests of July 11, 2021.
Prisoners Defenders documented in May 2026 an absolute record of 1,260 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Cuba, with reports of torture, assaults, and death threats.
Sotolongo concludes his message with a reference to the writer and former political prisoner Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, who was subjected to house arrest as a precautionary measure in June 2026 for charges he denies.
"I'm in a terrible state. Really on the edge of the abyss. But I trust in God. Freedom for my son and his fellow activists, and for all the prisoners who have not received due process. Blessed are those of us who weep for Santiesteban, as your book says," she concluded.
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