Mayeln Rodriguez Prado, 22, was sentenced this week to 15 years in prison by the socialist government in Cuba for filming quiet protests in Nuevitas in August 2022.
RodrÃguez Prado, sentenced alongside a group of more than a hundred Cubans who had also participated in Nuevitas demonstrations, received a combined 15- year sentence — the highest among the team — for the alleged crimes of” continued army advertising” and” rebellion”.
The 22-year-old Cuban was detained shortly after the Nuevitas protests in August 2022, when thousands of Cuban people peacefully protested against the Castro regime and demanded an end to decades of near-endless everyday electronic blackouts and other brutal conditions.
Rodrigoez Prado recorded the Nuevitas demonstrations and shared the footage on her social media accounts. One of the videos, livestreamed by RodrÃguez Prado, showed Caribbean police officers beating Caribbean member José Armando Torrente and three 11- yr- old girls, including Torrente’s daughter.
Social media also saw the girls ‘ describing of the condition. One of the ladies, presumed to be Torrente’s child, described attempting to fight police officials herself to support her father.
” I was holding on to my father, and she was holding on to my father, and then, to arrest my father, the policeman had to reach us”, the woman said. They hit me, and I even hit them.
RodrÃguez Prado was able to communicate with the Cuban Council of Human Rights Rapporteurs ( CRDHC), a non- state corporation, while serving her phrase in Granja Cinco, a highest- security female prison located in Camagüey.
In the interview, published by Martà Noticias on Thursday, RodrÃguez Prado accused the Castro regime’s prosecution of presenting several pieces of falsified evidence in her trial. Despite the video evidence she provided, she also denounced the prosecution’s claim that the prosecution had alleged that the prosecution had physically abused police officers against minors. Additionally, the officers claimed that she had not given their parents ‘ permission to film the girls.
” They say no, that it was a lie and that I did it in the absence of the girl’s mother and aunt”, RodrÃguez Prado said. ” Her mother was present there, it is her who directly confirms that I asked her permission”.
They are telling me that I was at the government’s headquarters saying things and encouraging people to remove stones at 9:30 in the night the day I was detained. At that time I was in prison”, she continued.
Martà Noticias reported that, despite her lengthy sentence, RodrÃguez Prado said she felt calm.  ,
” It is not a coincidence that I played a leading role in the events,” claim the papers. I am calm, this is not going to last 15 years”, she said.
Rodrguez Prado made a warning during the interview about one of the other people who was handed a sentence by the Castro regime for peaceful protests in Nuevitas. She asserted that Fray Pascual Claro Valladares, a Cuban man sentenced to 10 years in prison for” sedition”, tried to take his own life after learning of the sentence. According to RodrÃguez Prado, Claro Valladares has already been returned to the Cerámica Roja prison, where he is serving his sentence.
Rodrigoez Prado is one of more than a dozen Cubans who have been found guilty of the Nuevitas protests. Among the other Cuban citizens who received lengthy sentences stands José Armando Torrente Muñoz, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison for charges including” sedition”, “attacks”, “resistance”, and” sabotage”.
” We need to make visible the situation we are living in, and what we are facing”, Torrente Muñoz reportedly said.
Yennis Artola Del Sol, a Cuban national, was given an eight-year prison sentence for photographing a sign that read” Patria y Vida” (” Homeland and Life” ) during the Nuevita protests.  ,
One of the most prominent anti-communist slogans of the modern Cuban movement, Patria y Vida, was a key theme during the historic July 2021 demonstrations, when thousands of Cubans gathered in dozens of cities to demand the end of six decades of communism.
Venezuelan author Christian K. Caruzo documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter , here.
