After Yosandri Mulet Almarales’ death, NGOs warn of the risk this kind of prisoner is facing in the island’s prisons
14ymedio, Madrid, 3 September 2024 — Three “suicidal ideation events”, three self-harming events and six attempts to take one’s own life have been registered by the Cuban Prison Documentation Center (CDPC in Spanish) since January 1, 2024, by 10 Cuban political prisoners (seven men and three women). In a statement issued together with Justicia 11J – both now part of the Initiative for Research and Incidence – following the suicide committed by Yosandri Mulet Almarales, the programs warn of the special risk posed by these prisoners.
The Mexico-based organization recalls that, before Mulet Almarales’ death, “presumably from injuries sustained after a suicide attempt on August 22,” it says in the report, it had already alerted to his situation. Sentenced to 10 years for participating in the July 11 and 12, 2021 demonstrations in La Güinera, Havana (11J), the 37-year-old had already attempted suicide before, in June 2022, in the maximum security prison Combinado del Este.
On August 22, while on leave from the penitentiary center where he was doing forced labor, he threw himself from the Calabazar bridge, in the capital, and on August 26, his family was told the news. The Initiative quotes activist Marcel Valdés, who said that it is not clear how many days he was in the Julio Trigo hospital, where he was taken “apparently alive”, because “the military authorities took over the place”.
For the NGO, in any case, his death “confirms the need to heed the warnings” it has issued “about suicidal ideation, self-harm and attempts to take one’s own life by Cuban political prisoners”.
Machado Conde, sentenced to 9 years for the 11J, “has been subjected to multiple cases of abuse in prison,” says the NGO, and has attempted suicide several times.
Other prisoners of conscience at risk of suicide listed in the statement are the men Abel Lázaro Machado Conde, Ismael Rodríguez González, Yasmany González Valdés, Fray Pascual Claro Valladares, Daiver Leyva Vélez, Omar Ortega, and the women Mayelín Rodríguez Prado, Yanet Pérez Quevedo and Lizandra Góngora.
Machado Conde, sentenced to 9 years for 11J, “has been subjected to multiple instances of abuse in prison,” says the NGO, and has attempted suicide several times. In May 2023, after one of these attempts, the authorities of Quivicán prison, in Mayabeque province, where he is serving his sentence, “handcuffed him all night by his hands and feet in a corridor”, and last March, he sewed his mouth shut after a beating and several days in a punishment cell.
For Ismael Rodriguez Gonzalez, the CDPC has registered three “suicidal ideation events”. Sentenced to 7 years for the July 11 demonstrations, he also does not have access to his medication in prison, despite having a diagnosis of intellectual disability, suicidal risk and personality disorder.
Meanwhile, last February, Yasmany González Valdés, sentenced to four years for painting anti-government posters on walls in Havana, told his wife that he had thought of taking his own life, after months of abuse in Cuban prisons and the judicial limbo he was going through at the time.
Another person sentenced for the Nuevitas protests, Daiver Leyva Vélez, sentenced to 10 years for sedition, has tried to hang himself on two occasions.
They also documented that Mayelín Rodríguez Prado and Yanet Pérez Quevedo, political prisoners at the Kilo 5 prison in Camagüey province, attempted to take their own lives “in protest against mistreatment” by prison authorities.
Similarly, Fray Pascual Claro Valladares attempted suicide after learning, last April, of his 10-year sentence for peacefully demonstrating in Nuevitas, Camagüey, in August 2022. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), in fact, granted him precautionary measures in July and denounced that “his suicide attempt was handled with negligence, without receiving the necessary psychiatric care and being punished with isolation”.
Another person sentenced for the Nuevitas protests, Daiver Leyva Vélez, sentenced to 10 years for the crime of sedition, has tried to hang himself on two occasions. Both Omar Ortega, imprisoned in Morón, Ciego de Ávila, and Lizandra Góngora, in Los Colonos, Isla de la Juventud, have told their families of their intention to attempt to kill themselves.
On the other hand, Yosandry Mulet Almarales is the second 11J prisoner to die, according to the organization. Last November, Luis Barrios Díaz, also 37 years old, died after “respiratory complications aggravated by the decision of the authorities not to keep him in a Havana hospital,” according to the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights. The State granted Barrios Díaz an out-of-prison leave of absence only when it considered his death imminent, the Initiative denounces.
Translated by LAR
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