Statement from the Republican Party of Cuba

By Ramón Zamora Rodríguez.

Holguín, Cuba. The Republican Party of Cuba announces through all communication channels that the courageous and dignified political prisoners for the popular demonstrations of July 11 of last year, María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez, Angélica Garrido Rodríguez, and Lizandra Góngora Espinoza, are standing firm this Tuesday, September 20, 2022, in total opposition to the use of prison uniforms, demanding the use of the white clothing that characterizes political prisoners and protesting the unjust and rigged sentence imposed by the courts under the terrorist orders of the Castro regime.

The absurd sentences imposed on these young women, some as many as 14 years in prison, mothers of up to five children, reveal the misogynistic characteristics of a failed, desperate, and murderous regime that violates basic human rights. This regime, driven by terrorism and murder, clings to power through state terrorism, sending these women to prison for exercising their fundamental rights. They are subjected to the harshest conditions at the El Guatao Women's Prison in Havana, instilling terror in the population as a preventative measure to suppress further protests and the people's discontent and desire for freedom.

In just this year since the imprisonment of the members of the Republican Party of Cuba, María Cristina Garrido, Angélica Garrido, and Lizandra Góngora, they have had to endure the unjust and arbitrary separation from the care, protection, maintenance, and loving support of their children; the weight of a disproportionate and rigged sentence in every respect; the suffering from illnesses complicated by the absence and denial of medical assistance; the putrid, fetid, and poorly prepared prison meals; the skin conditions caused by the scabies that is rampant in this prison; the poorly filtered water treated with chemicals that leaves a burning sensation after bathing; the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment they suffer at the hands of the prison guards; and the constant blackmail from State Security to try to break their will. These are some of the horrors faced by these three women, who are the pride of our Republican Party of Cuba, the dissenting opposition to the Castro regime. of their families and of Cuban civil society.

María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez, the National Executive Director of the Republican Party of Cuba, her sister Angélica Garrido Rodríguez, and Lizandra Góngora Espinoza, all members of the organization, demonstrated for years their firm and unwavering stance against the Castro military dictatorship. They led powerful street protests, pot-banging demonstrations, and appeals to the people's conscience to awaken from the lethargy instilled by the regime, so that they might shake off the chains of hunger, humiliation, and modern-day slavery that Cubans have borne for over 63 years in their trampled homeland. These actions revealed their human greatness and their unwavering commitment to achieving the rights and freedoms so violated and stolen by the dictators in power, who, frightened by the weight of these courageous women's actions, imprisoned them in their infernal dungeons.

It is time for unity in action, regardless of the vision of each group that opposes the nefarious Castro regime. The Republican Party of Cuba calls for all voices of independent civil society, both inside and outside the island, to unite in order to provide the deserved support demanded by the actions of these three women who, at the cost of their health and lives, are demanding the vindication of their rights, rights that have been stripped away and denied by the regime, as it does indiscriminately with so many millions of Cubans. As long as we remain deaf to the horrors perpetrated by the dictatorship, we will always be indirectly cooperating with and sustaining its satanism. We are not asking anyone for a samurai-style suicide or a kamikaze-like act; we are asking for support in denouncing, in making visible, in raising awareness among every Cuban who wants a future for themselves and their loved ones, echoing the voices of these three women who want the best for their suffering homeland. We ask that you not abandon them, leaving them in ostracism and silence, while their tormentors let them die. We call on you to be the voice of these women, who today suffer in prison for the injustice that tomorrow could befall you or yours. so that no political prisoner, regardless of their background, feels alone, because the pain of Cuba is the pain of everyone.

Ramón Zamora Rodríguez.

Director and National Spokesperson of the Republican Party of Cuba.