The family of Cuban political prisoner Roilán Álvarez Rensoler reported this Sunday that State Security is conditioning his release on the prior purchase of a plane ticket to Guyana, a requirement that his associates describe as "blackmail" and fear may conclude without the authorities fulfilling their promise.
According to a report by Martí Noticias, the 41-year-old activist was returned on Friday to the provincial prison in Holguín after ending a hunger strike that lasted 20 days, the second since his arrest on January 30 in the municipality of Mella, in Santiago de Cuba.
Her sister, Ariadna Álvarez Rensoler, stated that the officer from the political police in charge of the case, identified only as "Ernesto," is demanding that the family present the purchased ticket before transferring the opposition member to the airport and proceeding with his release.
The family members refuse to accept the condition because they fear spending the money only for the authorities not to release Álvarez Rensoler in the end. This distrust is compounded by an even more immediate difficulty: they state that they do not have the necessary resources to afford the ticket.
For that reason, the family keeps the activist's passport in their possession.
Ariadna also reported that the officer "Ernesto" stopped responding to the family's calls, increasing the uncertainty about the political prisoner’s future and the conditions set for his eventual departure from Cuba.
It was Álvarez Rensoler himself who managed to communicate by phone from prison to inform his family that he had been transferred again to the provincial prison in Holguín, in order to prevent them from traveling to another correctional facility.
The situation especially worries the family due to the physical deterioration that could result from 20 days without food. His sister noted that after ending the hunger strike, the opposition member "does not have food or basic supplies in the prison where he has been returned."
Álvarez Rensoler is a member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) and a promoter of the citizen initiative Cuba Decide. Cuban authorities accuse him of the crime of propaganda against the constitutional order for carrying out anti-government graffiti in Holguín and damaging a billboard featuring an image of Fidel Castro in Birán.
His imprisonment has been marked by hunger strikes, allegations of violence and a significant deterioration in his health.
Following his arrest in January, he staged a first hunger strike that lasted more than 48 days during which he suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest. His condition forced him to be hospitalized in critical condition at the Amelia Simoni hospital in Holguín.
The seriousness of the case led the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to grant precautionary measures in March through Resolution 19/26.
The situation worsened again in July. On the 18th of that month, prison guards brutally beat him after he refused to wear the prison uniform, according to reports from activists and family members. The assault is said to have caused fractures in his arms and injuries to his head.
Days later, Cubalex reported that he had been moved to a punishment cell, where he began his second hunger strike since his arrest. The activist ended the fast this week after reaching 20 days.
The complaint from his family regarding the demand to purchase a ticket in order to leave prison brings to mind previous cases where dissidents and political prisoners in Cuba have reported pressures from State Security to leave the country.
In 2019, Prisoners Defenders and Reuters documented reports from activists who claimed to have been pressured to leave Cuba, with Guyana being a destination in some cases. Years earlier, between 2010 and 2011, the release of a significant number of prisoners from the Black Spring of 2003 was accompanied by their relocation to Spain along with their families.
Meanwhile, Álvarez Rensoler's family continues to wait for a concrete response regarding his release, but they refuse to purchase a ticket without guarantees that the regime will keep its word and finally allow the activist to leave prison.
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