Lizandra Góngora declares a hunger strike in protest against Díaz-Canel’s statement that there are no political prisoners
14ymedio, Madrid, April 23, 2026 — “Dad, please get me out of here, I can’t take it anymore.” With these words, Jonathan Muir Burgos called his parents from Canaleta prison (Ciego de Ávila) on Wednesday, at almost 2:00 a.m. The 16-year-old, arrested for participating in the massive demonstration in the town of Morón on March 13, is desperate due to the appalling conditions in the prison, where he is being held awaiting trial.
According to his father, Pastor Elier Muir, in a video shared by fellow evangelical pastor Mario Félix Lleonart, he and his wife received the call from the young man at that hour because bedbugs were keeping him awake. “They’re infesting my skin, and I feel like my brain isn’t going to take it anymore,” Muir quoted his son as saying. “I wrap myself in the sheets, and even then, the bites won’t let me sleep day or night.”
The pastor fears for his son’s health not only because of the wounds the parasites, which he says are proliferating in the new cell where he has been transferred, might cause, but also because of the meager food the boy receives. “They give him a pittance, enough to fit in a six- or eight-ounce disposable cup, at four in the afternoon, and then he doesn’t see anything else until five-thirty or six in the morning,” the father says.
“They give him food, meager, which all fits in a disposable six- or eight-ounce cup, at four in the afternoon, and then he doesn’t see anything else until five thirty or six in the morning.”
The provisions that the family brought him on their last visit, he continues, “have already run out,” because “he shares them with the five prisoners who are there with him, just as the others share with him, but they have nothing left.”
Accompanying the video that disseminates Muir’s message, Lleonart wrote: “A sick minor, subjected to this cruel treatment simply for participating in a peaceful protest asking for food, light, and freedom. This is state torture,” while demanding his “immediate release” and “urgent medical attention.”
On April 9, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) sent an official request to the Cuban government demanding urgent information on the situation of the minor. The request, addressed to Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, gave the State five days to respond regarding Jonathan Muir’s detention conditions, his state of health, and the measures taken to guarantee his safety.
The IACHR clarified that this request did not imply a decision on granting such measures, but stressed the urgency of verifying the adolescent’s situation. The request was made following a petition for precautionary measures filed by the organization Cuba Decide.
Jonathan Muir, along with Kevin Samuel Echevarría Rodríguez, also a minor at 15 years old, were two of the new prisoners counted in March by the organization Prisoners Defenders (PD). That report from the Madrid-based NGO marked another record in March: with 44 new prisoners of conscience, the total rose to 1,250.
The strike, this family member explained, seeks “to demonstrate that there are indeed people imprisoned for political reasons and to demand respect for her status as a political prisoner.”
The number of women and minors arrested has grown “significantly,” Prisoners Defenders denounces, saying it demonstrates “a significant increase in repression also against vulnerable groups and a devastating impact on entire families.”
Faced with this reality, and amid pressure and contacts between the US and Cuba, the regime has continued to deny the existence of political prisoners in recent weeks, whose release is one of the requirements of the ultimatum given by the Trump administration to Havana, which expires this weekend.
It was precisely in response to President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s statements to NBC that political prisoner Lizandra Góngora, sentenced to 14 years in prison—the longest sentence imposed on a woman for participating in the July 11, 2021 protests—declared a hunger strike this Wednesday. She is being held in Los Colonos prison on the Isle of Youth.
Her husband, Ángel Delgado, explained this to Martí Noticias, which also reported on the words of the opposition leader’s cousin Ariel Góngora, in a Facebook Live broadcast. The hunger strike, this relative explained, aims “to demonstrate that there are indeed people imprisoned for political reasons and to demand respect for her status as a political prisoner.”
Ariel Góngora holds the Cuban regime responsible for any consequences to his cousin’s health and points out that she is not the only prisoner protesting in this way. He cited the example of Jesús Véliz Marcano, also imprisoned since the 11 July 2021 Island-wide protests, in his case in Camagüey, who this Thursday marks nine days of a hunger strike in solitary confinement.
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