Prison Diary XIV. The Punishment of the "Master"

Prison Diary XIV. The Punishment of the "Master" / Angel Santiesteban
Posted on May 3, 2013

In Castro's Cuba those who dare to confront the system, like the Creoles
who faced the Crown during the colonial period, will be imprisoned,
tortured, killed or exiled.

Nothing has changed. The Castro regime continues to harass those who
think differently; they are making me pay for my posts by bringing me to
this closed prison to which they have "sentenced" me, according to their
own laws, it is another violation of my rights as because I should be
in a prison camp, as I was in La Lima Prison.

But it's not enough that they unjustly condemned me without any proof or
that they locked me in prison, I have been put in a cell block where the
prisoners are on a severe regime, those who have committed serious
crimes. Because it is State Security who controls my fate in jail and
Lieutenant Colonel Reuben of Section 21 warned me so, on his visit to
the La Lima prison.

Here in the 1580 Prison, the inmates at times pressure me because
everyone wants me to listen to their pain, for me to tell the world of
the injustices and abuses that the Cuban prison system commits against
them. And I leave my writing and reading to listen. And they show me the
beds of those who have committed suicide.

Beside me, one shows me his arms marked all along their length, cuts
that he has done more and more as a protest against injustice. The
re-educators should ensure that they respect our "rights," but they're
incapable of it, and sometimes you see them move from one place to
another with their military uniforms waiting for their work shifts to end.

Many prisoners have completed their sentences but because of
bureaucratic paperwork remain imprisoned.

They, in their silence and in the opposition with their voices, one day
very soon, will be rewarded with a society of Rights.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

1580 Prison, San Miguel del Padrón. April 2013

28 April 2013

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