Pablo Moya Dela, Member of Unpacu and Activist, Dies

Pablo Moya Delá, died this Thursday night at the “Juan Bruno Zayas” Clinical Surgical Hospital in Santiago de Cuba. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, August 27, 2021 – The former political prisoner and member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), Pablo Moya Delá, died this Thursday night at the “Juan Bruno Zayas” Clinical Surgical Hospital in Santiago de Cuba due to to the fact that the anemia and pneumonia with which he presented were complicated by a bacterial infection he acquired in the polyclinic.

At the beginning of August, Moya Delá, age 65, was released from prison on a furlough, which kept him disqualified from his citizenship rights, and was transferred to the hospital in serious condition, after spending 40 days on a hunger strike in Boniato Prison in Santiago de Cuba.

Two months before his protest “he had suffered beatings by common prisoners acting at the behest of State Security,” according to a statement of complaint published on Unpacu’s social media, which also stated that he was being denied medical attention.

Moya Delá’s health deteriorated in prison, aggravating his pre-existing ailments: “arterial hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia, and muscular atrophy in one of his hands due to a neurological disorder,” according to his son, Daineris Moya Garcia. Despite this, he managed to overcome the covid-19 that was diagnosed in March.

“Sister, my father has died, they killed my father,” Moya García said to Kata Mojena, the emigrant activist, to tell her of his father’s death.

In the polyclinic, he had a fever of 102.2 degrees and adverse reactions to medications used as substitutes to treat his ailments, such as administering dechlorpheinate in the absence of dipyrone; which caused his blood pressure to drop “to 90 over 60, then 80 over 60, later 60 over 40 and 70 over 60”, according to what was published on the Facebook account of the leader of Unpacu, José Daniel García Ferrer, who has been detained since July 11.

There were treatments that were not completed due to the lack of medications, said the dissident’s son. “The medicine they are giving me is a medicine that has no effect on me,” Pablo Moya told Ana Belkis Ferrer Garcia, just five days before his death.

Family members and activists blame the Cuban regime for the death of the dissident and former political prisoner.. Venezuelan lawyer Tamara Suju, a human rights defender and executive director of the Casla Institute, denounced: “Another Cuban political prisoner dies, who had been released a few days ago in inhumane healthcare conditions.” And she held Diaz Canel responsible. “He lets them die little by little in prisons, a form of Communist Torture.”

Moya Delá was arrested on October 23, 2020, when he protested against shortages in stores and repression, and was taken to the Eleventh Police Station of San Miguel Padrón, Havana. There, he maintained a 23-day strike despite being in poor health, according to his family, and was later taken to Santiago de Cuba as an “illegal.”

Self-employed, a former sailor, and promoter of Cuba Decides, he lived with his wife in the Cuban capital, where he maintained his opposition activity; but the authorities considered his residence illegal, and every time he was arrested he was taken to Santiago de Cuba, where he was originally from.

Translated by Tomás A.

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