Amnesty International calls for the release of both political prisoners and demands urgent guarantees for their safety.
Political prisoners Félix Navarro and his daughter Saylí Navarro rejected the proposal to leave Cuba made by the auxiliary bishop of Havana, Eloy Ricardo Domínguez Martínez, who visited their respective prisons to offer them exile as a solution. In an audio recording shared by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), Sonia Álvarez Campillo, Saylí’s mother and Félix’s wife, emphasizes that “they are not going to leave the country.”
“Last Tuesday, the auxiliary bishop of Havana and president of the Prison Ministry appeared at the Agüica prison – in Matanzas – with the aim of inviting Félix to leave the country,” Álvarez Campillo recounts in the audio.
After visiting that prison, the bishop went to the La Bellotex women’s prison, where Saylí is serving her sentence, to make the same proposal, “but the response from both was negative.”
The bishop also expressed his concern “about the beating that the bloodthirsty Noslen Pedroso gave to Félix” on April 8. As reported by the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC), Félix Navarro was beaten in prison, which endangered his life due to his fragile health.
Félix Navarro was beaten in prison, which endangered his life due to his delicate state of health.
The organization held State Security and prison authorities responsible for the attack and any resulting consequences, and denounced that, after the attack, Navarro was transferred to a punishment cell, which aggravates his situation.
Because of this attack, Amnesty International (AI) demanded the “immediate and unconditional release of Félix Navarro, urgent guarantees for his life and integrity, immediate contact with his family and justice for this serious violation of human rights.”
In a post on its official X account, the organization noted that repression in Cuba now has “another dimension: the punishment against families who seek information, care, accompany and denounce.”
It also stated that “prisoners of conscience in Cuba face arbitrary imprisonment, incommunicado detention, threats, punishments, and other forms of mistreatment for peacefully exercising their rights. Their families, especially women, often also endure harassment, anguish, emotional exhaustion, and institutional abandonment.”
“Prisoners of conscience in Cuba face arbitrary imprisonment, incommunicado detention, threats, punishments and other forms of ill-treatment”
Amnesty International also took a stand on Saylí Navarro. Last Saturday, the organization demanded her release. “She is a Cuban activist, prisoner of conscience, and co-founder of the Ladies in White movement, a group of mothers, wives, and daughters of the 75 people detained during the 2003 wave of repression known as the Black Spring,” Amnesty International stated.
Until April 18, the activist went more than 137 days without being able to visit her father, despite having the right to do so every 45 days. More than two weeks ago, the authorities allowed a meeting between them, days before the bishop’s visit to prisons in Matanzas and after the attacks on the opposition leader in prison.
The church visit came at a time of serious deterioration in the health of the 72-year-old opposition leader, who suffers from diabetes and respiratory problems. His family has repeatedly denounced the denial of adequate medical care in prison.
Both Félix Navarro – who was part of the prisoners of the Black Spring in 2003 – and his daughter were arrested on the morning of July 12, 2021, when they appeared at the Police Unit of the Matanzas municipality of Perico to inquire about the fate of those arrested the day before, after the historic Island-wide demonstrations of 11 July 2021, known as ’11J’.
Félix Navarro is serving a nine-year prison sentence, accused of “assault, contempt and public disorder,” while his daughter Saylí was sentenced to eight years, for the same crimes as her father, plus “disobedience,” both for events related to the popular protests of July 11 and 12, 2021.
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