At the time of his death, Yan Carlos was in the Arnaldo Milián Provincial Hospital in Santa Clara.
14ymedio, Madrid, 9 July 2025 — Yan Carlos González González, imprisoned for over a year in Santa Clara’s La Pendiente prison, died on Monday, July 7, due to a serious deterioration in his health, the Cubalex organization confirmed Tuesday. Accused of setting fire to a sugarcane field, the 44-year-old prisoner faced 20 years in prison at the request of the prosecutor’s office.
González, a native of Manacas, maintained his innocence from the moment he entered prison. Both he and his family had claimed there was no evidence he was responsible for the crime he was charged with. Despite this, he was arrested on May 17, 2024, and remained in pretrial detention until April 2025, when, after learning of the lengthy sentence requested by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, he began a hunger strike that lasted more than 40 days. Furthermore, in May, he sewed his eyes and mouth shut, according to sources close to Cubalex, “as an extreme form of protest to denounce his situation.”
At the time of his death, Yan Carlos was in the Arnaldo Milián Provincial Hospital in Santa Clara, with a reserved prognosis. “You said you wouldn’t serve a sentence because you were innocent, and you did, brother. We will remember you for being the wonderful person you were and will be,” said one acquaintance on social media, one of the hundreds who mourned the prisoner’s death.
Cubalex has alerted its concern that there are currently at least two other prisoners in danger for similar reasons.
Cubalex has alerted its concern that there are currently at least two other prisoners in danger for similar reasons. One of them is Miguel Alfonso Jiménez Martínez, also hospitalized at the Arnaldo Milián Provincial Hospital and on hunger strike for more than two months. He is in pretrial detention for allegedly throwing stones at a store. The organization reports that authorities have modified his provisional measure to a less severe one due to his health. He is now expected to appear before the investigator in the case periodically.
The second is Alexander Díaz Rodríguez, a prisoner convicted of 11J in Pinar del Río, who is currently in the Kilo 5 y Medio prison, where he was transferred on July 5, and is being denied medical attention. “According to information received by Cubalex, Lieutenant Colonel Luis, head of the prison’s medical station, refuses to provide him with the essential medications for his health condition, and also refuses to authorize a medical diet, even though Alexander shows signs of severe malnutrition,” the organization reported in recent hours.
Cubalex affirms that reprisals against Díaz Rodríguez are ongoing, as he is managing to denounce his “alarming physical deterioration” and the appalling conditions in which he is imprisoned through photos on social media. “This refusal is not an isolated incident: it is part of a deliberate policy of extreme punishment against those who speak out from prison to expose the regime’s abuses,” Cubalex warns.
The three prisoners’ faces are less well-known than those of two other emblematic leaders of the Cuban opposition who are suffering under the harsh conditions of a Cuban prison: Félix Navarro and José Daniel Ferrer, vice president and president of the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC), which issued a statement on Tuesday in which it made an “urgent and unavoidable” call on behalf of both of them and all other political prisoners on the island.
“Both remain steadfast, even in the face of barbarism, and represent the best of Cuba’s civic spirit. The international community can make a difference; concerted action can save lives,” they claim. In the text, they specifically call on the foreign ministries of the United States, Europe, and Latin America, and the entire international community, to “act firmly and decisively in the face of a situation that violates human rights with concrete actions,” including expressing their concern to Cuban embassies and requesting information from the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
They also urge the Catholic Church of Cuba and international human rights associations to mobilize
They also urge the mobilization of the Catholic Church in Cuba and international human rights associations, although Amnesty International has been specifically speaking out for José Daniel Ferrer for years, whom they consider a prisoner of conscience, to no avail. Currently, he has been on on a hunger strike for two weeks, according to his wife.
“The CTDC will continue working with governments, organizations, and institutions, both inside and outside Cuba, to end the spiral of dehumanization that permeates our institutions and that particularly cruelly affects political prisoners and all Cubans deprived of their liberty,” it concludes.
In late June , the Research and Advocacy Initiative, formerly known as Justice 11J, warned of an alarming number of deaths in custody and torture within the Cuban prison system during the first half of the year. The Mexico City-based organization indicated in a report that at least 24 people died in Cuban prisons, eight of them after being deprived of medical care, while 160 acts constituting torture or cruel treatment were documented.
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