Organizations demand immediate release of three Cuban political prisoners artists

By Radio Televisión Martí Editorial Staff.

María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez. (Photo: Facebook)

Three renowned international organizations demanded the “immediate and unconditional” release of Cuban artists María Cristina Garrido, Randy Arteaga “Randy AR” and Richard Zamora Brito “El Radical”.

The poet and the two rappers are among the hundreds of political prisoners from the July 11, 2021, protests and are the focus of the #VocesPresas (Imprisoned Voices) campaign, led by the freedom of expression and artistic expression organization Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), with the support of PEN International, the Latin America and Caribbean chapter of PEN, and the Latin American section of Civil Rights Defenders. “The Cuban government keeps artists imprisoned and under judicial harassment for one purpose only: to silence its society. The truth will not be silenced by imprisoning artists. Art and ideas cannot be imprisoned,” ARC stated on its Twitter account.

ARC indicated that the Cuban government has them imprisoned as a means of social control, but assured that the international community will continue to expose the level of repression by the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel.

The poet and political prisoner sentenced to seven years of deprivation of liberty for peacefully demonstrating is in the Guatao women's prison in Havana and, since her arrest, has been beaten, isolated, forced to undress and humiliated on repeated occasions.

The rapper Arteaga, sentenced to five years in prison also for peacefully demonstrating on those dates, has denounced the terrible situation that prisoners live in prison for political reasons.

“El Radical” was tried and sentenced to one year and six months of correctional labor without internment for the same reasons as Garrido and Arteaga.

In April 2022, ARC reported that at least 39 artists had been arrested in Cuba for the protests of the so-called 11J, among them the renowned visual artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, sentenced to five years, the rapper winner of two Latin Grammys Maykel Castillo “El Osorbo”, who is serving seven years in prison and the young musician Abel Lescay.

Note from the Republican Party.

María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez is the National Executive Director of the Republican Party of Cuba