Melanie Rodríguez Taboada, 23 years old, posted a video this Saturday in which she breaks down in tears and expresses the exhaustion that her brother's imprisonment has caused her family. Her brother, the Cuban political prisoner Duannis Dabel León Taboada, was sentenced to 14 years in prison following the protests on July 11, 2021.
The video, shared by activist Tania Tassé and circulated by the organization Alas Tensas, once again highlights the suffering of the hundreds of families of protesters from the 11J who are currently enduring political imprisonment in Cuba for exercising their right to protest peacefully.
“My name is Melanie Rodríguez Taboada, I am the sister of the political prisoner Duannis Dabel León Taboada, who is sentenced to 14 years in the maximum security prison Combinado del Este. It has been five years since he has been imprisoned, and I am simply making this video because I feel that my heart can’t take it anymore,” says the young woman at the start of her testimony.
The question that titles his complaint summarizes the weight of five years of forced separation: «Do I have to wait 14 years to be reunited with my brother and family to be happy?»
Through tears, Melanie described the human cost of political repression on her closest circle: "I am tired. This hurts, it hurts to go through so much, it hurts to have such a frustrating life, it hurts to have a lump in my throat and not be able to say anything, fearing that something will happen to you or your family."
It also extended its condemnation to other cases of repression against young Cubans, mentioning Anna Bensi —a content creator sentenced on October 1, 2026 to two years of restriction of liberty for recording a MININT agent—: "It hurts to see how they take away others, young people like me, like Ana Bensi, who was taken away, and being unable to do anything."
His testimony concluded with a plea that he summed up in a single sentence: "If I could ask for just one thing in this world, it would be for Cubans to be free. It would be my last wish before I die, the final thought in my mind would be that we are free."
Duannis Dabel León Taboada is a Cuban poet who was arrested on July 16, 2021, five days after the 11J protests, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, Havana. He was 19 years old. He was initially sentenced to 21 years in prison for sedition; the sentence was reduced to 14 after a cassation process, as documented.
Throughout his incarceration at the Combinado del Este, the regime has subjected him to a systematic pattern of reprisals. In July 2025, he undertook a 12-day hunger strike; upon ending it, he was sent to a punishment cell.
In February 2026, he was assaulted by a prison official, and in April of the same year, he was moved back to a disciplinary cell for writing the words "freedom" and "justice" inside the prison.
In August 2026, Duannis reported from Combinado del Este that the inmates had been without water for three days and that each prisoner received barely one bottle a day to drink and bathe.
Repression has also reached his family. In September 2025, five women attacked one of his sisters in broad daylight in Havana while the neighborhood chief of the National Revolutionary Police watched without intervening.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures in favor of Duannis and his mother, Yenisey Taboada Ortiz, on January 19, 2026, considering that both were facing serious and irreparable risks to their life, integrity, and health.
The case of Duannis is part of a widespread repression: according to Justicia 11J, as of October 2026, there were 338 individuals sentenced for the 11J within a total of 775 documented political prisoners, while Prisoners Defenders reported 1,306 political prisoners in Cuba at the end of June 2026.
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