14ymedio, Havana, 6 September 2025 — The family of Félix Navarro complains that they cannot fully understand his health status in prison. The opposition leader, who has been imprisoned again in the Agüica prison in Matanzas since his parole was revoked last April, is ill and isolated.
According to activist Annia Zamora, a family friend, who spoke to 14ymedio, Navarro was given a course of antibiotics, which he has now completed, and “must continue recovering” from an infection. The problem, she warns, is that they are keeping him “in something they call the infirmary, but it’s not the infirmary.” In an area that is not for the elderly, as would be appropriate for him given his 72 years of age, without communication, without television, without being able to go out for walks in the sun, the Lady in White also claims, “they are keeping him isolated in that so-called infirmary.”
Until the next visit, which she doesn’t know if it will be in late September or early October, as the family hasn’t yet been given a date, they won’t know exactly how he’s doing. “The situation right now is very worrying,” Zamora laments.
On April 29, the Supreme People’s Court revoked the releases of Navarro and José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), alleging that they “violated the law during the probationary period to which they were subject.” It also stated that “they are individuals who publicly call for disorder and contempt of authorities in their social and digital environments and maintain public ties to the chargé d’affaires of the United States Embassy in Cuba.”
Navarro, who suffers from diabetes and other health problems, was serving a nine-year sentence for public disorder, contempt, and assault following the 11 July 2021 Island-wide protests, but had been released as part of an agreement between the Vatican and Havana. According to the court, his detention was justified by the opposition leader’s contempt for leaving his municipality seven times without the judge’s permission.
“There’s tuberculosis, bedbugs, scabies, all kinds of diseases in there.”
On the other hand, the family of musician and activist Fernando Almenares, known as Nando OBDC, denounces that the artist is being held in the Cuba Panama prison, located in Güines, Mayabeque, for HIV and AIDS patients, when he does not have this condition.
“There’s tuberculosis, bedbugs, scabies, all kinds of diseases in there, and I told Fernando not to let anyone inject him because they could give him the virus,” his mother, Eva Rivera, told Martí Noticias. The woman explained that the prison warden reproached her for her son’s refusal to receive the therapy given to other inmates. “The therapy they give to these patients, who have their treatment, their medicine,” Rivera clarified, claiming to have told the warden: “Under my responsibility, I don’t allow Fernando to inject himself or take any kind of therapy, because Fernando doesn’t have any kind of illness.”
At the end of July, the rapper went on a hunger strike to protest being held incommunicado in prison.
Almenares was arrested on December 31, 2024, at his home in the Havana municipality of La Lisa and charged with “propaganda against the constitutional order,” alleged “subversive activities,” and links to individuals promoting “terrorism against the Cuban state.”
During one of his mother’s visits to him in prison, the instructor in the case told Rivera that her son was being prosecuted for a crime related to “a fire that occurred in Lenin Park on December 30,” but the family denies any involvement by the artist in the incident.
For its part, the Prosecutor’s Office has not presented any provisional conclusions, nor has any trial been held against him after more than seven months of imprisonment. His detention is described by organizations and family members as arbitrary and unjust.
In statements published this Saturday by Martí Noticias, Eva Rivera said that the lawyer in charge of the young man’s defense filed a habeas corpus petition, but warned her that there are delays in the courts “because there are no prosecutors.” The woman is “very, very, very worried” that her son “will have a fabricated, because that’s the right word,” with an accusation against him, “because they fabricate any kind of evidence.”
For her activism as a member of Unpacu, Verdecia Rodríguez had previously received five sanctions
Another political prisoner, Alexander Verdecia, also has no trial date, and has been incarcerated for seven months. His wife, Eliannis Villavicencio, also reported the situation to Martí Noticias, explaining that her husband would demonstrate at Las Mangas prison in Bayamo (Granma) “every three or four days” until his case is processed.
Just last June, he received the prosecutor’s request: 10 years in prison for “propaganda against the constitutional order” and “incitement to commit a crime” for posting anti-regime slogans on Facebook.
One of the posts encouraged fellow citizens to demonstrate peacefully. “The Castro-Canel regime is committing genocide against the Cuban people. They are slowly annihilating them with hunger and misery. We must demand the resignation of Díaz-Canel and everyone else on social media.” And it called for the then upcoming May 1st: “What we need to do is protest peacefully for your rights, for our rights. Do not support lies, hunger, misery, and communism any longer… Use your right not to participate in this farce.”
For various crimes associated with her activism as a member of UNPACU, Verdecia Rodríguez had previously received five sanctions (two in 2015, one in 2016, one in 2018, and one in 2019). Hence, the legal document also noted a “criminal record.” All of them, her wife told this newspaper, “have to do with politics.”
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