Yudinela Castro has seen her son eight times in the last six months, but says in a subdued voice that she would have preferred not to have to.
“It would have been better not to have visited him in prison, because he came out full of scabies, with a bad smell and a hellish color.
She had not been able to bathe for days, ”the mother denounced in a phone call from Havana.
Her 17-year-old son, Rowland Castillo, was arrested in the middle of the street and interrogated by the Cuban political police
without the presence of his parents or a lawyer
.
He was transferred to an adult prison just days after the July 11 protests, when thousands of Cubans like him demanded "freedom" in cities across most of the island during the largest demonstration in six decades of Communism.
Castillo, who turned 18 behind bars, awaits an undated trial.
Cuban prosecutors are asking him for 23 years in prison for the crime of sedition, one of the most common measures applied against protesters, and which is charged with those who "disturb the socialist order," according to the Cuban Penal Code.
Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro with his mother, Yudinela Castro.
The teenager served 18 years behind bars, awaiting trial.
Courtesy of Yudy Castro
The Havana regime detained at least
45 children between the ages of 14 and 17 for their participation in the summer protests
, according to a count by the group Justicia 11J, made up of activists, independent journalists and lawyers to document the repression after the demonstrations.
14 of those minors remain behind bars awaiting trial
.
Others have been released on bail or house arrest.
In recent weeks, the island's authorities have held trials against at least 204 protesters, according to the group Justicia 11J.
Some 20 people are already serving sentences of between 12 and 30 years in prison for participating in the protests or broadcasting them on social media.
Neither the Havana regime nor the state press - the only one legally permitted on the island - have released information or figures on the detainees, trials and convictions.
The official discourse has delegitimized the demands of the protesters,
accusing them of being "organized and financed from the United States."
Cubalex, an independent legal body based in Miami, estimates that some 700 people are still in prison and that 500 have been released pending trial or after receiving sanctions and fines for common crimes such as public disorder, instigation to crime and spread of COVID- 19.
“The age that is repeated the most in our records (of detainees) is 21 years.
Justice is being cruel against them because it is a way of educating a generation that had a very strong presence in the July 11 demonstrations, "Salomé García Bacallao, one of the people in charge of Justicia 11J, told Telemundo News.
Parents report threats and layoffs for complaining
Four families interviewed by Noticias Telemundo denounced that their underage children have been questioned without the presence of adults or lawyers, some of them were detained in the street without their parents being informed about their whereabouts for days or weeks.
During their detention, they have contracted diseases such as COVID-19, scabies and dengue, they say.
"My son had never been ill," denounces Yanaisy Curbelo, mother of Brandon Becerra, who was arrested at the age of 17 last July and has been in the Jóvenes de Occidente prison in Havana for six months.
Prosecutors ask him for 18 years in prison
for the crime of sedition.
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July 22, 202102: 01
"The worst things of his life have happened," says Curbelo, who assures that his son contracted coronavirus and hepatitis in prison.
“A child who did not know the police, wives, or anything about politics, a child studying a Bachelor of Spanish Language.
And I saw him handcuffed as if he had killed Raúl Castro
”.
The UNICEF office in Cuba declined to comment on the complaints of minors detained awaiting trial for participating in the protests.
He also refused to respond to reports of interrogations of minors without the presence of adults, which violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international treaty to which Cuba is a signatory.
"UNICEF Cuba is in permanent contact with the Cuban authorities and carries out actions aimed at strengthening mechanisms for the protection of children and adolescents, working with their counterparts in a coordinated and transparent manner," a spokeswoman for the office based in Havana.
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After pressure and complaints on social networks, the agency said in November that it was "concerned about the alleged cases of detention of children reported in Cuba" and urged the authorities to report their situation.
Some of the younger children arrested after the July protests were
14-year-old
Christopher Lleonart, who was detained for a month and stopped receiving treatment for a psychiatric condition, according to family complaints.
Also Glenda de la Caridad Marrero, a
15-year-old
girl living in the province of Matanzas, accused of leading the protests there.
Both were later released.
"I came to see my children after three months in prison
," complains Emilio Román, father of Emisyolán Román, who was arrested at 17 and turned 18 in jail.
The teenager's two brothers, aged 24 and 25, are also in jail and were charged with sedition.
“It is too difficult to hear how many years they ask each one of them.
They ask the smallest 15 years, the oldest 20 years, and the middle 25 years, "he says from Havana.
"We are awaiting trial."
Other parents denounce pressure from State Security for their claims on social networks, the only trace that some have found to dump their complaints and their impotence.
Bárbara Farrat, mother of 17-year-old student Jonathan Torres Farrat, who was arrested at her home on August 13, says that State Security agents have threatened to deny her visits to prison if she continues to report.
"They also told me that I had to make a video speaking well of this country," he
says.
Farrat went on a hunger strike in December as a form of protest and tattooed his son's name on his arm along with the phrase 'Patria y Vida', the anti-communist anthem that bothers the authorities because it challenges the Castro slogan 'Patria o Death'.
Jonathan Torres Farrat, 17, with his mother, Bárbara Farrat.
The child was arrested on August 13 and interrogated without the presence of an adult, the mother denounces.
Courtesy of Bárbara Farrat
"When they took the greatest thing from me, my son, they also took away my fear," says the Cuban mother.
“This whole situation has led me to declare myself an activist.
And as long as a minor is detained, I will continue to denounce ”.
Yudinela Castro was fired from her job with a state agricultural company just days after her son, Rowland Castillo, was arrested.
They told him that the family's political affiliation was the reason, he says.
“I was head of control and quality at Acopio.
They took my son on July 16 and on July 23 I was discharged.
They told me I wasn't trustworthy because of what my son did, ”he complains.
Jail and banishment for political opponents
Activists denounce that the crime of sedition, applied to more than a hundred protesters, is the new face of political repression on the island, where protests are rare and quickly suppressed.
Justicia11J has registered more than 140 people accused of this concept.
“The crime of sedition is an eminently political crime against State Security.
This demolishes the discourse that there are no political prisoners in Cuba, ”says García, coordinator of the independent group.
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July 14, 202101: 52
Cuba lived in 2021 a wave of demonstrations unprecedented in the recent history of the island, where just over 11 million inhabitants live.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the shortage of food and medicine, as tourism was almost completely paralyzed, one of the main sources of income in an economy that only in the first quarter of last year decreased by 13.4%, according to official data.
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Economic reforms included in the so-called "Ordering Task" have caused rampant inflation that have also fueled popular discontent.
The regime has responded to the protests with widespread internet shutdowns, the militarization of the streets, and arrests.
Journalists, artists and political opponents with the greatest organizational capacity are in jail awaiting trial, under house arrest or have been forced into exile.
