Prisoners Defenders counts 32 prisoners at risk of death if they are not released “immediately”
14ymedio, Madrid, April 16, 2026 / This Wednesday, more than three months after initially denying them access, authorities at the Agüica prison in the municipality of Colón (Matanzas) allowed Félix Navarro and his daughter, Saylí, both political prisoners, to meet. The young woman was transferred from the La Bellotex women’s prison in Matanzas, where she is serving an eight-year sentence for public disorder, contempt, and assault—the same crimes for which her father was sentenced to nine years.
Félix Navarro’s wife and Saylí’s mother, Sonia Álvarez Campillo, learned of the permitted visit just as she went to see her husband, accompanied by Iván Hernández Carrillo, as he stated in an interview with Radio Martí . “They allowed Sonia to enter, and a soldier greeted her and told her that Félix was fine. Sonia told her she wanted proof of life, that she wanted to see Félix, and the soldier replied that they couldn’t bring him because he was visiting his daughter,” the activist recounted. The guards told her that Saylí would be the one to report on her father’s health.
The last time they were allowed the visit was in November, Hernández Carrillo continued, even though it’s a right they have every 45 days. “There had already had three visits that were due to them and they hadn’t been granted one,” she denounced.
The activist also said that Navarro is no longer in the punishment cell to which he was transferred after the brutal beating he received last Thursday.
The activist also said that, at least apparently, Félix Navarro is no longer in the punishment cell to which he was transferred after the brutal beating he received last Thursday. If that were the case, Hernández Castillo reasoned, “they wouldn’t have allowed him the visit.”
The beating was reported to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) by Cuba Decide, which filed an urgent appeal regarding the incident. According to Juan Carlos Vargas, director of Cuba Decide, speaking to Martí Noticias, the attack occurred after a family visit, when the opposition member was intercepted by prison officials, handcuffed, and beaten while defenseless.
Both Navarro – who was part of the prisoners of the Black Spring in 2003, is 72 years old and suffers from several health problems – 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 demonstrations of 11 July 2021, known as ’11J’.
This Thursday, Prisoners Defenders (PD) released its monthly report on political prisoners, which once again set a new record in March. With 44 new prisoners of conscience last month, the total rises to 1,250 (36 more than in February ). The Madrid-based NGO also reports a “significant increase” in the number of women and children detained, demonstrating “a substantial rise in repression against vulnerable groups and a devastating impact on entire families.”
With 13 new political prisoners, the number of women stands at 145, and the number of people who were arrested while they were minors, 33. Two of them entered in the month of March: Jonathan Muir Burgos, 16 years old, and Kevin Samuel Echevarría Rodríguez, 15. Both were arrested in Morón, Ciego de Ávila, after the massive protest in which the demonstrators managed to take over the headquarters of the Communist Party, last March 13 .
Among the nearly 200 people detained in connection with the events in Morón, 12 political prisoners have been confirmed, all of them “without an arrest warrant or judicial protection
Kevin Samuel was arrested days after the protests and “subjected to interrogation while in custody,” the organization details, “being accused of having participated as one of the organizers of the protest, despite evidence that the demonstrations were peaceful.” Regarding Jonathan—son of the evangelical pastor Elier Muir Ávila, who has been harassed for years by the regime, and whose imprisonment has prompted the IACHR to demand explanations—PD highlights the “extremely serious” accusation he faces, sabotage, “is a charge that in Cuba is usually tried in military courts.”
Among the nearly 200 people detained in connection with the events in Morón, the NGO reports that 12 new political prisoners have been confirmed as being deprived of their liberty, all of them “without an arrest warrant or judicial protection and most of them through violent operations carried out by agents of the State Security, known as Black Berets, which constitutes a systematic pattern of planned repression against peaceful protest.”
Javier Larrondo, president of Prisoners Defenders, refers to this in a video sent to the media. “In addition to the repression, torture, and record numbers of political prisoners, the sentences are extremely harsh; 217 protesters have been punished for sedition with an average of 10 years, and the minors on the list are serving sentences of five years on average,” says the activist, who adds another striking figure from the report: 447 political prisoners who “suffer from illnesses caused or aggravated by the conditions of confinement, torture, and the systematic and deliberate denial of medical care.”
The organization has conducted a study on the prisoners who could die “if they are not released from prison immediately” and they put the number at 32. If they are not released, they warn, “they could die in less than 12 months or suffer irreversible damage: 21 with very serious illnesses, 4 mothers with children in a situation of forced orphanhood and 7 with serious mental illnesses, potentially suicidal.”
There has been an increase in mistreatment in prisons, transfers to punishment cells, the withdrawal of food and belongings, as well as threats
In addition to the circumstances surrounding political prisoners, PD points to the intensification of repression by the regime, which “treats as an enemy” anyone who dares to express discontent, which is also growing in the country. In this regard, it cites the case of Anna Sofía Benítez , known on social media as Anna Bensi, whose critical videos on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have made her and her mother “direct targets of the authorities.”
Along the same lines is the most recent report from the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), also published this Thursday. The Madrid-based organization denounces that “while the Cuban regime denies the existence of political prisoners to the international press and announces a pardon that has only benefited common criminals, a violent crackdown on prisoners of conscience is taking place in the island’s prisons.”
Thus, as documented by the OCDH, mistreatment, transfers to punishment cells, withdrawal of food and belongings, as well as threats and the placement of common prisoners in their cells to attack political prisoners have increased in prisons.
Among the most serious cases, the NGO highlights those of Duannis León Taboada, sentenced to 14 years, Ángel Jesús Véliz Marcano (six years) and Liosnel López Arocha (12 years), all of them convicted for demonstrating on 11J.
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