Cuban Rapper Maykel Osboro Ends Hunger and Thirst Strike in Prison

Maykel Osorbo himself (on the left) phoned El Funky (on the right) to tell him that he was ending the hunger and thirst strike. (Facebook / Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 31 October 2021 — Rapper Maykel Castillo Osorbo ended the hunger and thirst strike that he started a few days ago at the Kilo Cinco y Medio prison, in Pinar del Río, where he has been since May 31. The curator Anamely Ramos, Osorbo’s partner and a member, like him, of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) reported this on her Facebook page this Saturday .

“He is weak but well,” writes Ramos, who says that Osorbo himself called Eliexer Márquez El Funky to break the news. “He wanted to notify us quickly so that people did not continue to worry. He knows they love him. That is his greatest pride,” says the curator.

The musician was arrested on May 18 and is accused of “attack,” “public disorder” and “evasion of prisoners or detainees” for some events that occurred on April 4, in a demonstration on Damas Street, headquarters of the opposition group, when the police tried to arbitrarily detain him but he refused to get on the patrol.

In her post, Anamely Ramos also mentioned the young Andy García Lorenzo, 23, imprisoned in Santa Clara, for whom the Prosecutor’s Office was asking for seven years in prison for demonstrating on July 11, and she reported that he was also on a hunger strike. “Yesterday I learned that Andy also ended the strike and that he was sentenced to seven years immediately afterward,” says Ramos. “You have to be very vile to do something like that. I think of the judges, the prosecutor, how do they lend themselves to something like that?”

“A person on strike has hit bottom, but it is a bottom that emerges with many convictions,” continues the curator and art historian. “Somehow this being on the edge connects you with the most essential and even with your deepest personal history. However, the bottom to which the Cuban regime falls more every day, is a bottom with no return, it is that of cruelty and shame, no chance of coming out again.”

And she asserts, referring to the Cuban government: “You are leaving. It cannot be otherwise. Those who are imprisoned will emerge. It cannot be otherwise.”

On October 26, the MSI expressed its “unconditional” support for the Archipiélago group and its Civic March for Change of November 15 (N15) which the regime has described as “illegal” and that it tries to boycott by daily discrediting its organizers in the official media.

Archipiélago, for its part, does not cease its civic initiatives for that day. This Saturday, the platform called for “the union of lawyers and legal professionals in Cuba” to get in touch with the group and help those who want to demonstrate on 15N.

“It is not necessary that they be in accordance with the values promoted by the March or with the ideals of the promoters,” they specify in a statement released on networks. “Our call is addressed to those who are willing to act by virtue of their profession, of objectivity, of justice, leaving aside political biases and prejudices.”

They call for legal specialists because “many people who participated in the 11J protests have had to confront the authorities without legal representation or minimal advice” since “various violations of respect for due process in prisons or prison units The country’s police officers have gone unpunished for lack of legal assistance. “

“Due to the spontaneous nature of those demonstrations, there was no prior coordination or timely assistance, everything had to be done on the spot. As a consequence, some results were obtained soon, others are still on the way and a large part of their identity is still unknown”, explains the platform, which leaves their data (cell phone for WhatsApp and Telegram: +34 644 19 21 22 and email: Apoyoarchipielago15N@gmail.com) for the lawyers to contact them.

In addition, on Friday Archipiélago launched the Polis page, an open source tool created to “horizontalize decision-making in the group and provide feedback taking into account the voices of all Cubans,” where opinions of all kinds can be gathered.

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