Cuban Prisoner's Day

By: Pedro Corzo - 17/04/2025

Guest columnist.
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April 5th has been chosen by Cuban political prisoners and former prisoners to commemorate Prisoners' Day, a very special day that honors the most illustrious and worthy of all our compatriots, the apostle Jose Martí.

On that day in 1870, a young man who had barely turned 17 was transported to the San Lázaro quarries, near the Vedado neighborhood, to extract stones from an inhuman cliff.

With a close shave, wearing the number 113 and a shackle attached to one ankle, he began a life that never intimidated him, to the point that in the photo he sent to his mother, capturing the moment, he wrote: "Look at me, mother, and for your love, do not cry: Yes, slave to my age and my doctrines, I filled your martyr heart with thorns, Think that flowers are born among thorns."

The Cuban political prison against totalitarianism, following in the indelible footsteps of the apostle, adopted April 5, the date of his incarceration, to evoke his sacrifice and bear witness to the fact that his heroic deed is repeated on the island by men and women who faithfully believe in his apostolate.

This past Sunday, the Cuban Historical Political Prison, under the presidency of Ángel Pardo Mazorra and the leadership of Luis González Infante, Enrique Ruano, and José Luis Fernández, called on the community, as every year, to commemorate the date and pay tribute to the memory of the teacher and the more than a thousand compatriots who, although behind bars, continue to resist tyranny.

The continuity of the Prison has been so intense that we must remember that when the former political prisoner Oscar Elias Biscet was born, our hero Roberto Martin Perez was in prison, when the also former political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer was born, the martyr, 44 years imprisoned in two stages, Armando Sosa Fontuni was serving his first sentence, when the also martyr Orlando Zapata Tamayo was born they were closing the Isla de Pinos prison and when the heroic Sayli Navarro came into the world, there were still prisoners from the historic Plantados.

Cuban political prison is the longest-running and most diverse in the Americas, as well as the most numerous, particularly among women. Cuban women have spent thousands of years behind bars, some serving more than 15 years in prison, like the heroine Cary Roque, and more than a hundred men have spent more than 25 years in prison, with at least three breaking all records: Ignacio Cuesta Valle, 29 years old, and Mario Chanes de Armas and Miguel Diaz Bouza, with more than 30 years in prison.

In Cuba, before the establishment of totalitarianism, there were fewer than a dozen prisons; decades later, there were more than 300 prisons and forced labor camps that could rival, in terms of the cruelty of the henchmen who guarded them, their counterparts in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, China, or communist Korea.

Over these 66 years, more than half a million men and women have passed through Castro's prisons, those who have had the will to pay the high price of becoming free and full citizens.

The event was charged with emotion, as expected. Former prisoner Angelica Garrido served 36 months in prison for participating in the July 11th civic protests; brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro served only 22 months after causing dozens of deaths in the attack on the Moncada Barracks. Despite having her sister, María Cristina, in prison, Angelica demanded that the dictatorship be confronted by whatever means necessary, repeating the mambi chant, "Corneta, blow the slaughter!"

The Cuban Political Prison, although a consequence of the struggle against tyranny, has a life of its own. In prison, they resist, just as thousands do in the streets. Best of all, when these men and women are released, they don't come out broken; they feel more committed, more respectful of their obligations, which is why they continue to fight the regime and show their pride in having been in the Castro prisons, now guarded by Miguel Diaz-Canel.

They all reflect a commitment to freedom and human rights. Prison prepared them to be better citizens, to feel and proudly display their status as Cuban political prisoners.

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