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Amnesty calls for Roberto Pérez Fonseca's release as his family reports another punishment cell
Amnesty International Americas on November 3 called for the release of July 11 prisoner Roberto Pérez Fonseca, whom it identifies as a prisoner of conscience, while his family says he was put in isolation at Aguacate prison after displaying a bedsheet with the phrase Patria y Vida, according to Infobae.
Amnesty International Americas published a post on Tuesday, November 3, with the prisoner's photograph and the slogan “Free Roberto Pérez Fonseca, prisoner of conscience,” identifying him as a Cuban activist and human rights defender. The organisation reserves that category for people detained for peacefully expressing their convictions, identity or other beliefs, provided they have neither promoted nor used violence.
The call coincided with a fresh report of reprisals at Aguacate prison, in Quivicán, Mayabeque province. According to his family, Pérez Fonseca was moved to an isolation cell after displaying a bedsheet with the phrase “Patria y Vida” in the prison yard. The prison director confirmed the decision to his mother, Liset Fonseca, according to the account given by his brother Alberto Ortega Fonseca, an activist exiled in Canada.
The brother said in a Facebook broadcast that the episode was preceded by an assault: another inmate allegedly attacked Pérez Fonseca from behind and, when he tried to defend himself, pulled a blade in front of a prison educator and several officers. The family maintains that the guards present neither intervened nor punished the attacker. That is the family's account, and Yamacoa has not been able to verify it independently.
The same relative said his brother has been placed in isolation on more than 10 occasions since his imprisonment and estimated that, adding up every stretch, he has spent between one and two years in punishment cells. He attributed the decline in his health to the conditions in those cells: “It is known that most are walled-up cells with little ventilation.”
The Prisoners Defenders International file on Pérez Fonseca records asthma, chronic bronchitis, oesophagitis, gastritis, pneumonia and stomach ulcers, and places him at Aguacate prison, in Quivicán.
Pérez Fonseca was arrested on July 16, 2021, five days after the protests of July 11, 2021, in a case linked to the demonstrations in San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque. He is serving a 10-year sentence handed down in May 2023 and upheld on appeal for assault, contempt, incitement to commit a crime and public disorder.
Amnesty International did not say in its post whether it was aware of this latest transfer to a punishment cell: its message focused on the call for his release and on identifying Pérez Fonseca as a prisoner of conscience.
Sources: Infobae · Serie Yamacoa: Presos políticos en Cuba (Prisoners Defenders)
Data updated: 2026-11-04T16:15:00.000Z