Life in a Cuban prison, like the one we were in, went through different stages. We weren’t always in the same situation. We had a very rough beginning, by being transferred to high security prisons where we couldn’t see each other, even though those who had been arrested in the spring of 2003 were right next to each other. We had a visiting schedule every three months under which we were denied our families’ home cooking. I must stress the home cooking part because the food given in the Cuban prison system is very limited, and it’s hard to stay healthy since the food provided is very scarce and of very poor quality.
The families have to bring what we call food bundles for the inmates, so you can complement your diet every now and again, when you have visitors. We had that family visit every three months, but without the right to receive food. We would receive food every fourth month, and we could have conjugal visits every fifth month. This was the most severe regime, in which, like I mentioned before, we were isolated from each other despite actually being together, because we couldn’t see each other from within the cells at any point during the day. There were columns in place that didn’t even allow you to see your neighboring partners by using a mirror. That was in the beginning.
We had no access to phone calls, to televisions or radios, and the cells were very foul smelling, full of insects and rodents. There were rats hanging from the ceiling, they came in and out of the cells, like it was their home. There were mosquitoes, which are unbearable in the Cuban heat, and we had to make due amidst these conditions for a long time. Afterwards, the situation changed a little and they started to take us to lower security prisons, or rather lower severity prisons. We even spent time in some cells where, if you stand in the middle, you can touch both walls with your hands. It was like this until, not all of us, but many of us were taken to prisons where we could finally go out and walk around the prison’s sports field.
We couldn’t do this before. Before that, we didn’t even have the right to go outside during the day, but towards the end we could go outside once a week and walk around to get some sun, and every now and then maybe even meet up with some of our partners. But this all happened during the time when we passed from a totally isolated coexistence to the coexistence with actual criminals like murderers, pimps, and drug traffickers. Common criminals with whom we had to live on a daily basis, in cells that could very well be for eight to twelve people, but they were actually holding up to forty-six inmates. I was once in a cell with thirty-five people, although it was more apt for eight people, and from those thirty-five, twenty-eight had been convicted of crimes like murder. Luckily I never had any sort of problem with other inmates. They always respected me.
Regis Iglesias Ramirez is a Cuban political and civil society activist and a former prisoner of conscience. He was born in Havana in 1969.
He became a member of a dissident group, the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), in 1989. The MCL was founded by the late Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya, who died under mysterious circumstances in a car accident in 2012. Regis Iglesias Ramirez became the MCL’s spokesman and a member of its Coordination Council in 1996. He was nominated as a candidate to the Cuban Parliament in 1997, but his candidacy, along with those of colleagues from the MCL, was rejected by the regime’s electoral authorities.
He is a member of the National Executive of the Citizens Committee of the Varela Project, a civil society initiative advocating for free elections and improved human rights in Cuba. The Varela Project gathered signatures from Cuban citizens in favor of a plebiscite, as permitted by the Cuban constitution. The communist government refused to call the plebiscite.
In 2003, Regis Iglesias Ramirez was among 75 nonviolent dissidents and activists arrested by the Cuban regime in what became known as the Black Spring. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for crimes against the state. In 2010, he was released in a deal brokered by the Roman Catholic Church and was sent into exile in Spain, where he remains as a political refugee.
Regis Iglesias Ramirez has published several books of poetry and contributed to various literary anthologies. His articles have appeared in various publications in Spain and elsewhere. Since the mid-1990s, he has been associated with the Independent Press Bureau of Cuba, the New Cuban Press Agency and the Manuel Marquez Sterling Society of Independent Journalists in Cuba.
Cuba, an island nation of 11.4 million people in the northern Caribbean Sea, is a totalitarian state.
Fidel Castro led the 1959 Cuban Revolution and ruled the country for 49 years before formally relinquishing power to his younger brother Raul in 2008. Raul Castro is the current head of state and First Secretary of the Communist Party, which is recognized by the Cuban Constitution as the only legal political party and “the superior leading force of society and of the state.” Raul Castro has said that he will step down from power at the age of 86 in 2018.
Cuba was a territory of Spain until the Spanish-American War. The United States assumed control of the island until 1902, when the Republic of Cuba became formally independent. A fledgling democracy was established, with the U.S. continuing to play a strong role in Cuban affairs.
In 1952, facing an impending electoral loss, former president Fulgencio Batista staged a successful military coup and overthrew the existing government. While his first term as elected president in the 1940s largely honored progressive politics, universal freedoms, and the Cuban Constitution of 1940, Batista’s return to power in the 1950s was a dictatorship marked by corruption, organized crime and gambling. He held power until 1959 when he was ousted by Fidel Castro’s rebel July 26th Movement.
While promising free elections and democracy, Castro moved quickly to consolidate power. By 1961, Castro had declared Cuba to be a communist nation.
Castro’s communist government nationalized private businesses, lashed out at political opponents, and banned independent civil society. As Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union, Cuban-American relations soured, including a U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to war, after the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, prompting a U.S. naval embargo.
Since the revolution, Cuba has remained a one-party state. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the evaporation of Soviet economic support, Cuba loosened some economic policies, became more open to foreign investment, and legalized use of the U.S. dollar. By the late 1990s, Venezuela had become Cuba’s chief patron, thanks to the close relationship between the Castro brothers and Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez.
The regime continues to exercise authoritarian political control, clamping down on political dissent and mounting defamation campaigns against dissidents, portraying them as malignant U.S. agents. In a massive crackdown in 2003 known as the Black Spring, the government imprisoned 75 of Cuba’s best-known nonviolent dissidents.
The Cuban government does not respect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, movement, and religion. The government and the Communist Party control all news media, and the government routinely harasses and detains its critics, particularly those who advocate democracy and respect of human rights. Frequent government actions against dissidents often take the form of attacks by regime-organized mobs. Prison conditions are harsh and often life-threatening, and the courts operate as instruments of the Communist Party rather than conducting fair trials.
Cuba relaxed its travel laws in 2013, allowing some prominent dissidents to leave and return to the country. It continues to experiment with modest economic reforms but remains committed to communist economic orthodoxy.
In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report, Cuba was designated as “not free” and is grouped near the bottom of the world’s nations, with severely restricted civil rights and political liberties.
See all Cuba videos