Political prisoner Marcos de la Luz denounces five months of unpaid work in a Cuban prison

The prisoner was transferred from Villa Clara to the El Pitirre penitentiary in Havana to work on an organoponic garden./ (Cubalex) Cuban political prisoner Marcos de la Luz Caballero Granados denounced that he has been working for more than five months without receiving a salary at a penitentiary center in Cuba. According to his testimony, published in Cubanet, the situation affects most of the inmates who perform agricultural work at prisoners' camp number 16, where he is being held. Caballero Granados explained that he was transferred on March 26, 2026 from the Los Caneyes camp, in Villa Clara province, to the El Pitirre penitentiary, located in the San Miguel del Padrón municipality, in Havana. Since then he has been working on an organoponic garden dedicated to food production. The workday, according to the account published by the outlet, begins at 7:30 in the morning and ends at 4:00 in the afternoon. His tasks include clearing brush, hoeing, planting, and performing other agricultural work. On the farm they grow plantains, green beans, cucumbers, cassava, and avocados, among other products. The prisoner stated that he has not received any payment since he began working at the penitentiary. He indicated that during the first two months the corresponding salary was supposed to be a little over 2,000 Cuban pesos and that afterwards it would have increased to nearly 3,000 pesos per month. However, he asserted that so far no money has been given to him for his work. The inmates' workday runs from 7:30 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon, planting and harvesting vegetables and greens./ (Univistatv) The food is also part of his complaints. According to Cubanet, Caballero Granados pointed out that during the workday the workers receive a lunch consisting of about 80 grams of rice and a light-colored dough that, he described, appears to be made with wheat flour mixed with water. To drink, they receive a small amount of a preparation he identified as molasses water. The prisoner maintained that, on some occasions, the food is in poor condition and that several inmates have suffered stomach problems. According to his testimony, the military attribute those illnesses to the presence of some virus, without acknowledging a possible connection to the quality of the food. He also described how the harvested products are used. According to Cubanet, Caballero Granados stated that the crops from the organoponic garden are occasionally incorporated into the prisoners' meals, in small quantities and when external supplies run out. As an example, he recounted that when the chapo bananas brought from other places run out, the inmates receive a spoonful of boiled, mashed plantain. "For two days they have been giving out bread, which they bring from outside bakeries, but since bread can almost never be made due to the lack of electricity, what they give most is chopo, which is like a stone," he declared. He added that the drink provided consists of a cup of herbs whose origin, he said, is unknown. Caballero Granados is serving a 10-year prison sentence for writing posters against the Cuban regime, and his case appears on the Prisoners Defenders list./ (Illustrative image Infobae) Caballero Granados also denounced that the military control the harvested agricultural products and register the prisoners both when they leave the camp and when they return from work. According to the Cuban outlet, he stated that the inmates are not allowed to take any fruit or vegetable, under threat of being prosecuted for theft. The young man, a native of the Old Havana municipality, was imprisoned on February 11, 2020, accused of writing posters against the Cuban regime. He was later tried at the headquarters of the Popular Municipal Court of Diez de Octubre and sentenced to 10 years of deprivation of liberty for the crimes of "other acts against the security of the State," "continuous enemy propaganda," and "continuous contempt." His name appears in the database of Prisoners Defenders, a non-governmental organization based in Madrid that documents cases of people deprived of liberty for political reasons.