In Miami, top U.S. officials urge release of women political prisoners in Cuba
The Organization of American States, in partnership with the U.S. State Department and the Cuban American Bar Association, launched a campaign in Miami on Thursday calling for the release of women being held as political prisoners held in Cuba, part of a broader effort to press Cuban authorities to release the nearly 1,000 political prisoners on the island.
“We call on the government of Cuba for the immediate and unconditional release of those unjustly detained,” said Frank Mora, U.S. ambassador to the OAS at the event held at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity. “We stand with the people of Cuba and call on the regime in Havana to allow its citizens to freely and openly express themselves.”
There are as many as 110 women political prisoners in Cuba, most of them peaceful protesters who were detained after mass anti-government demonstrations on July 11, 2024. Many are mothers or the sole caretakers of their families.
Women have had a leading role in protests and in the opposition movement in Cuba and have disproportionately suffered from repressive government tactics, said Enrique Roig, deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. They are at higher risk of gender violence, and their detention has a significant effect on their dependents, he added.
“One thing that has not changed in Cuba for 65 years is the government’s abysmal human-rights record,” said Karin Lang, coordinator for Cuban affairs at the State Department. “Many of these women had never attempted to exercise their political rights before July 2021. They joined protests to express their frustration at the government’s failed policies. They are now serving sentences of 10 or 15 years in dreadful prison conditions. This is inhumane.”
According to the president of the Cuban American Bar Association, Javier
Alejandro Ley-Soto, the group’s lawyers are representing 52 men and women imprisoned during the July 11 protests.
He said they are subjected to harsh conditions, denied due process and are unable to communicate with their families. The association filed a petition on behalf of the prisoners to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an OAS group.
Lizandra Góngora, one of the women they represent, is a mother of five who has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for joining the July 11 protests. She is currently in a hospital with severe abdominal pain.
Another one, Lisdany Rodríguez, a member of the religious group the Free Yorubas of Cuba, is currently pregnant and has been pressure by Cuban state security members to have an abortion, Ley-Soto said.
“We can’t turn a blind eye to these human-rights abuses,” he said, a message echoed by Miami Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who added that she “stands unequivocally with those speaking out in Cuba for their pursuit of freedom, specifically for these women who have risked their lives.”
“We must support them,” she said.
American and European officials have been pressing the Cuban government for the release of political prisoners, including highprofile dissidents and artists like José Daniel Ferrer, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Félix Navarro and Maykel Castillo Pérez. But so far, Cuban authorities have shut down any potential disucssions on the subject.
Diplomatic tensions have escalated recently, at least publicly, after the Cuban government blamed the United States for recent protests in Santiago de Cuba and other cities driven by the lack of food, oil and other basic necessities on the island.
“We’ve witnessed protests in Santiago related to the regime’s inability to provide even the most basic goods and services such as electricity, along with fuel and food,” Mora said. “But we should not be surprised. The regime’s insistence on maintaining its antiquated, centrally planned and grossly inefficient economic system remains the culprit.”
But the administration seeks an opening by focusing on the humanitarian aspect of releasing female prisoners. Previously, when Sara Minkara, the State Department’s Special Advisor on International Disability Rights, inquired during a trip to the island earlier this eyar about the well-being of political prisoners with disabilities, she said Cuban authorities reacted with “openness” on the issue.
The speakers Thursday also paid homage to women who were imprisoned for several years during the early days of the revolution headed by Fidel Castro and who were forced into exile in the United States, including Ana Lázara Rodríguez and Genoveva Canabal.
They also honored former political prisoners Maritza Lugo Fernández and Carmen Arias Iglesias.
The women shared dramatic accounts of their time in prison and the suffering caused to their families.
“I was a girl; they did horrors to us; they destroyed our lives,” said Canabal, who was in high school when she was arrested. “They treated us like animals, like beasts, and almost all of us were almost girls, very young.”
“The animals in the United States are better fed than what we were in prison” in Cuba, she said.
Rodríguez, who was studying to become a doctor when she was arrested, spent 19 years in prison.
She said the female prisoners were “hit by men. We suffered all the humiliations you can imagine.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a letter to the four women thanking them for their courage and resilience in advocating for human rights in Cuba.
“I recognize your bravery in facing an authoritarian government’s repression,” Blinken wrote to Rodriguez. “Together, we will continue to support Cubans, including by defending their human rights and fundamental freedoms and enhancing their political and economic well-being.”