Another Political Prisoner Dies in Cuba Council of Coordinators of UNPACU February 24, 2017
This morning in the prison Combinado del Este, in Havana, political prisoner and member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), Hamell Santiago Maz Hernández, died at age 45.
According to the deceased activists’ wife, Milfre de la Caridad Reyes Reyes, two officials from the Ministry of Interior notified her that her husband had died of a heart attack.
This is the version of the jailers. UNPACU will investigate, with however many reliable sources are possible, the true causes that ended the life of this nonviolent oppositionist.
Maz Hernández was detained along with another UNPACU activist, Alberto Valles Pérez, on June 3, 2016 and was falsely accused of contempt. Up until this moment he had been awaiting the farce trial against him, ordered by the political police in retaliation for his courageous activism on the streets of Havana.
Hamell Santiago was one of 55 of UNPACU’s political prisoners that are currently being held in the jails of 5 eastern provinces, Camagüey, Havana, Mayabeque, Artemisa, and Pinar del Río.
UNPACU has continuously denounced the inhumane conditions, beatings, torturing, and other cruel and degrading acts that affect the dignity, health, and even the lives of their political prisoners.
This is the second UNPACU activist that has died in prison. Wilman Villar Mendoza died after a long hunger strike back in 2012.
If the democratic world does not energetically condemn the abuses of tyranny, other human rights defenders will also die in prison.
February 24, 2017
Council of Coordinators of UNPACU
José Daniel Ferrer García Yriades Hernández Aguilera Carlos Oliva Rivery Carlos Amel Oliva Torres Ovidio Martín Castellanos Jorge Cervantes García Katherine Mojena Hernández
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