WIFE OF CUBAN POLITICAL PRISONER DENOUNCES AGGRESSION MISTREATMENT IN GUANTANAMO PRISON
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Víctor Rolando Arroyo faces humiliation and punishment from his jailers

Political Prisoner Victor Rolando Arroyo

MIAMI, 14 of October of 2004 - In a telephone communication from Pinar del Río, Cuba, Elsa González Padrón denounced to the Cuban Democratic Directorate the situation of her husband the jailed independent journalist Víctor Rolando Arroyo, after visiting him on October 8 in the Guantánamo Provincial Prison.

“When they brought my husband, I found him very thin.  In less then a month he must have lost between 15 and 18 pounds.  In addition, physically he was not in the best of shape, although yes his spirit was firm.  It cheered me up to see he was in high spirits, very firm, very convinced about all his ideas and all his work, indicated González Padrón. 

According to what her husband was able to tell her during the visit, on September 1 officials of the penitentiary removed him from the dining room of the prison and told him to gather his belongings.  He was lead to an office where high ranking members of the military waited for him and proceeded to destroy his personal belongings, hurled food and crude insults with the aim of eliciting a violent reaction on his part.  Arroyo noticed that they had a camcorder ready to film him behaving aggressively and decided not to fall into the trap.  He was then led to a punishment cell, where a man lying down does not fit, stripped of all his belongings including medicines, and there he remained for 15 days, of which a total of four days he had a mattress.  Arroyo declared himself on a hunger strike demanding his medicines be returned and maintained it until they gave back the medications to him.

“Today, I wanted to ask the authorities if they are filming a video, apparently that is what they are doing, that they film the conditions in which my husband is living, and not only him, but all the prisoners that are there in Guantánamo, not only the prisoners of conscience but also the common prisoners. Let them film the terrible food, the filth, the cockroaches, the rats, and the abusive treatment that is not only directed towards him but to all prisoners whether common or of conscience. If they are going to make this video, I want them to show what I have seen when I’ve been there,” affirmed Arroyo’s wife.

Víctor Rolando Arroyo, 52 years old, was director of the Union of Journalists and Independent Cuban Writers, Unión de Periodistas y Escritores Cubanos Independientes (UPECI) when he was arrested in the crackdown unleashed by the regime against the opposition in March 2003.  He also directed one of the most important independent libraries of Cuba, with close to 5,000 volumes.  Condemned to 26 years, he is serving his sentence at the Combinado Provincial prison in Guantánamo more than 1000 kilometers from his family, who resides in the city of Pinar del Río on the other end of Cuba.

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Directorio Democrático Cubano
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In Memory of Mario Manuel de la Peña