Cuban mother criticizes regime for sentencing her son to 21 years in prison

The Cuban regime sentenced Luis Armando Cruz Aguilera to 21 years in prison for participating in Cuba’s July 11 protests. His mother, Maria Cecilia Aguilera Garcia, who had remained anonymous until now, spoke out against the regime’s attack against her son.

Aguilera Garcia shared the details of her son’s arrest in a Facebook post on October 24. She criticized the harsh sentence her 21-year-old son received for participating in July’s protest march in Havana.

“… until now I was calmly waiting to see what would happen, but enough is enough,” she wrote.

Military officers in civilian clothing came looking for Cruz Aguilera “as if it were an action movie or if they were looking for the biggest criminal in Cuba, a 21-year-old boy,” explained his mother.

Cruz Aguilera was transferred to the Acosta police station in the municipality of Diez de Octubre and was formally detained on July 24.

The police informed his mother that he would be taken to a farm. However, he was not transferred. Instead, Cruz Aguilera was held for 17 days at 100 y Aldabó, one of Cuba’s most notorious prisons, without his family’s knowledge.

Since then, Cruz Aguilera has been placed in several prisons, including Jovenes del Occidente Prison, and, most recently on October 23, Combinado del Este detention center.

When he arrived he was able to make a phone call to tell me they were sentencing him to 21 years in prison. That is when I asked myself: Who did my son kill? If people who commit murder don’t get sentenced that long, what are they trying to do with the life of a good boy, without a criminal record, who just joined thousands of other Cubans on July 11 to protests for their rights?” said Aguilera Garcia.

“I cannot allow them to ruin my son’s life by keeping him in prison for 21 years because of an injustice. I will do what I have to do,” assured his mother.

During the July 11 protests, the largest protests in decades, thousands of people demonstrated against government’s response to COVID-19, the country’s shortage of medicine, the economy, and the lack of freedom of expression and assembly in the country.

Cuban authorities responded by arresting hundreds of Cubans. In October, the Cuban judicial system began sanctioning prisoners for crimes such as “contempt,” “incitement,” and “public disorder.” The sentences range from a few months to 14 years.