After the attempted riot in Prison 1580
Last night, Sunday May 5 at 7:45 PM, an inmate — Reniel Agramonte Valle — was beaten by two guards: Jesus and Andy the karate man. The inmates of both barracks started shouting against abuse and almost all looked through the windows and bars while the guards continued the abuse of the black, slight and famished 24-year-old.
The prisoners began to hit the gate until it broke and opened; the guards seeing the possible population unnerved all about them, fled and forgot how numerous they and their batons were, the same ones who minutes before struck the prisoner in question, and who by then had been taking their pills for chronic mental illness that are supplied to them several times a day.
To stop the potential riot, the senior officer, when he reached the scene, freed the prisoner, and when they saw him return to the barracks it began to calm the spirits of his comrades who had already begun yelling “Down with Fidel,” “Down with dictatorship,” “Tomorrow we will get the news to Radio Martí,” “Assassins,” and “Abusers,” among others.
This morning, when the inmates attended the breakfast, they were met with German shepherds, the ones who on just seeing a prison uniform begin to bark and are very aggressive with them, Nazi-style.
In previous days they also beat several prisoners and after the beatings, they put them in cells hidden from the eyes of the rest of the prison population to hide their injuries and bodily signs of violence against them.
Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
Prison 1580, San Miguel del Padrón
Sowing Terror
One day after the attempted riot in the prison, they began the interviews and the removal of all persons who regularly conversed with me.
They want to keep inmates away from me because they consider a dangerous element my relating to them. And so they were taken to other barracks.
Now the prisoners afraid to approach me because they don’t want to be harmed. I am also concerned about some who claim not to care; because when they receive reprisals for being close to me, my guilty conscience is great because their fates are worse just for talking to me.
Even so, some have changed strategy and started to leave me papers on my bed with silent solidarity messages.
A prisoner on a hunger strike, Jesús Guerra Camejo, for talking with me, has also been taken from the company to an unknown destination.
The inmates are constantly interviewed to obtain information about me, writing or any data they might provide about me.
Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
Prison 1580, San Miguel del Padrón
10 May 2013
