The opposition leader’s record, like that of her sister, includes beatings, threats and solitary confinement.
14ymedio, Havana, 24 December 2024 – When Angélica Garrido left the El Guatao women’s prison last July, after serving a three-year sentence for protesting on 11 July 2021, what she considered her “normal” life had completely changed. Her children had grown up, her parents died without seeing her free, and her sister María Cristina was still in prison to serve the remaining four years of her sentence.
“I have just completed three years of an unjust sentence for crimes fabricated by State Security. I leave my soul, my heart and my spirit with my sister María Cristina,” said Garrido as soon as she left the prison in a video posted on her social media. The opposition leader also vindicated the rest of the political prisoners and “victims of this ineffective and tyrannical system that has kept the people in constant misery and repression.”
Several months passed without any news from Garrido until last November, when the activist once again appeared in the headlines of the independent press for her trip to Brussels to participate in the Transatlantic Parliamentary Forum for a Free Cuba. “I have come today to raise my voice for them and also for my people, who are dying in silence,” she declared in reference to the Cuban prisoners detained for protesting or dissenting from the Cuban regime.
In front of a group of European Deputies and politicians from the United States, Canada and several Latin American countries, Garrido recounted her arrest, without omitting details, in San Antonio de las Lajas (Mayabeque province). She also spoke of the mistreatment suffered in prison and the other side of repression, which is almost always ignored: “Our children have psychological scars from the arbitrary arrests that were made in front of them. My parents died in the first year that my sister and I were in prison, they were very adult people and they could not bear so much pain and so much injustice and they died.”
Nor did Garrido forget her sister, and that month she presented a book written secretly by María Cristina.
Nor did Garrido forget hrt sister, and that month she presented a book written secretly by María Cristina and smuggled out of prison on small pieces of paper with the help of friends. Voz capilar is for the activist a testimony and another promise that she will not remain silent while stories like hers are repeated. “Unfortunately, every day they spend in prison has repercussions on their lives, their health, because they are victims of repression, of torture, because they are already feeling the consequences of these three years in prison,” she argued in Brussels.
Garrido served three years in prison for contempt and assault, which was confirmed by the Mayabeque Provincial Court, ratifying the sentence imposed in the first instance and after rejecting an appeal. But she never bowed her head. The sisters frequently denounced torture and staged several protests, such as the one in September 2022, when they refused to wear the uniform of common prisoners and began a hunger strike.
Garrido’s record, like that of her sister, includes beatings, threats and solitary confinement in a punishment cell, but the opposition member says that her determination, far from diminishing, grew during her time in prison. “It is forbidden to lose heart, my brothers, for the country looks upon us proudly.”
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