The harsh reality of the children of Cuban political prisoners and their hunger strikes in protest

While the children of Cuban political prisoners suffer separation, their parents are resorting to hunger strikes in protest. For some, this costs them even harsher situations within the already serious conditions entailed by incarceration.

Hugo Pupo Santana, the son of political prisoner Samuel Pupo Martínez, sentenced to seven years for his participation in the historic 11-J protests in Cárdenas, Matanzas, has been separated from his father for nearly two years, and suffers each prison visit more and more.

"Another day of pain and injustice! The monthly visit to Dad! Poor thing, since yesterday he's been running around to get his hair cut, so that he?d look good for his father. When he came home from school in the afternoon, he went to four barbers and they were all closed, until he found one! But every month his dad says he is bigger and more handsome (he has had to mature and grow up in a hurry, his father says, now that he is the little man of the house)," wrote Yuneisy Santana, the mother of the boy and wife of the prisoner on Facebook.

In a post in which she shared images on their way to the visit, she added: "A father who never spent more than three days away from his beloved child, and now has spent more than 20 months in unjust confinement, without being able to be there in his day-to-day life, the life of his only son, his reason for living, his warrior. He has missed all the changes in him as a teenager. Why? For 'thinking differently.'"

Santana is one of the women who are tirelessly demanding freedom for relatives imprisoned after 11-J. "Your family needs you at home, your warrior needs you in his life! Enough pain and injustice! #CubaDeLuto (#CubaInMourning) Santana concluded.
Another political prisoner whose son is suffering separation and who is facing health problems is Erisdel Benítez Moya.

Benítez Moya went on hunger strike in prison one April 6 and was confined to solitary confinement "under cruel, inhumane and degrading conditions," according to dissident Ana Belkis Ferrer García on social media.

She said that the family of Benítez Moya, a resident of Guanabacoa, Havana, is concerned about the prisoner's physical and psychological wellbeing.

"Erisdel's children are very distressed by the forced absence of their father, with one of them presenting health problems that have worsened," the activist reported.

Benítez Moya was arrested last February along with his brother Esquizander. Both are sons of Dama de Blanco (Lady in White) Mercedes Moya Isaac.

Esquizander was arrested on February 1 for allegedly selling bread on the street, and was tied to a pole for more than an hour before being taken to a detention center, CubaNet reported at the time. His mother and brother joined him in a hunger strike to demand his release, and were also arrested.

Ferrer García demanded freedom for the Benítez Moya brothers, and also for Dixan Gainza Moré.

Gainza Moré also went on hunger strike last week. According to what the sister of the 11-J protester told Radio Marti on Sunday, he remains at the Kilo 8 prison in Camagüey, despite the family's fears for his health.

"We want him alive and we don't want him dead," said Disney Azahares, who was able to visit him on Saturday and confirm that "he is feeling much better than on the 5th," but he is still in bad shape: thinner, fatigued, with stomach pain and high blood pressure. "We are very worried, he is not well at all," she said.

The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) activist will continue with the protest he began on the afternoon of April 1 to demand his conditional release after serving a third of his six-year prison sentence. He does plan to start drinking water, however.
"He has told me that he's not going to quit the hunger strike," Azahares said. The activist promised to drink "whatever water is necessary for his body to continue to exist, but that he was not going to eat a bite."

Gaínza, 37, is currently in an isolated cell in the health services area of Kilo 8, where there is no mistreatment, his sister said.
However, she stated, "we want them to know that Dixan is not well at all, that organs can fail, that something bad can happen to him, that we can lose him at any moment, and that we hold Prisons responsible for what happens to my brother, and we?re letting the whole world know."

Last Wednesday his mother went to Kilo 8, but was not allowed to see Gaínza Moré, triggering a heated argument with the warden, Lieutenant Colonel Juan Miguel Duarte Sánchez. After the incident his family asked to verify his state of health.
This is not the first time that the activist has protested: on January 1, 2023 he abandoned the hunger strike he was carrying out in solitary at the Cerámica Roja prison, in the capital of Camagüey, which he had begun on December 26 at La Empresita prison.

The group of political detainees Justicia 11-J has condemned at least 82 incidents, from human rights violations to repressive acts, in Cuban prisons, in a report on the situation of prisoners in March.

Justicia 11J documented 32 cases involving the deterioration of the physical or emotional states, or the physical or mental health, of 37 persons incarcerated. The organization stated that "acts of repression or violated rights have led to hunger strikes as a form of protest," with "at least four people in prison beginning them" in the month of March.