EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 1 January 2024 — Luis Robles, a Cuban protester imprisoned since December 2020, has received a prison permit to serve the rest of his five-year sentence in a correctional labor camp, his mother, Yindra Elizastigui, confirmed to EFE on Sunday.
Robles, considered by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) as a political prisoner, as well as by organizations such as Prisoners Defenders (PD), based in Madrid, was sentenced on the Island for the crimes of enemy propaganda and disobedience.
According to Elizastigui, the 31-year-old has been transferred to a special area of the Combinado del Este, a penitentiary center on the outskirts of Havana, where he was before.
He welcomed this transfer happily because it was expected. It’s been four months since he was told that it had been approved
“Luis called us on Friday at half past five in the afternoon (to inform us of the decision). He welcomed this transfer happily because it was expected. It’s been four months since he was told that it had been approved.”
The transfer comes days after Elizastigui went on a hunger strike to request her son’s transfer into minimum security. After meeting with the “director general” of Prisons, she was told that “the procedure on Luis’s file was quite advanced and that the final verdict would soon be announced.”
Robles, also known as the “young man with the placard,” was noticed after demonstrating alone with a sign on a central pedestrian promenade in the Cuban capital in which he asked for the release of dissident rapper Denis Solís, who had been sentenced to eight months for contempt.
The protester was arrested after holding his placard for several minutes. On that occasion, Televisión Cubana justified the arrest by claiming that Robles had resisted and engaged in a “frank act of provocation.”
For his mother, the transfer to the correctional work center is a “big step” so that he later “gets his parole”
For his mother, the transfer to the correctional work center is a “big step” so that he later “gets his parole.”
She also said that her son “actually shouldn’t have gone through all that. They should release him because he is unjustly imprisoned. Let’s hope that in 2024 God will finally grant me the grace of my son being free.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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