Political Prisoner Jaime Navarrete Needs Medical Attention
...says his mother
HAVANA TIMES – Margine Blandon is once again raising her voice to demand her son’s freedom. Jaime Enrique Navarrete Blandon is a political prisoner who has now spent three years and two months in the maximum-security cells of the prison known as “El Modelo”. Blandon asserts that her son is ill and asks that he be seen by a doctor.
Margine Blandon, who is a US resident, left the prison greatly upset after visiting her son in La Modelo. She was alarmed by the serious state of his health; nevertheless, she says that prison functionaries demanded she sign a document affirming that Navarrete is in good health, despite the falseness of the statement.
“[I told them]: ‘I can’t sign that paper, because it says here that my son’s condition is good. My son’s condition isn’t good. I’ll sign the paper for you but I’m adding a note that my son isn’t in good health: he has a cough, low blood pressure and diarrhea,’” Blandon explained to the Nicaraguan news site 100% Noticias. She was then threatened with the suspension of her visitation rights if she added any comments to the document.
Margine Blandon indicated that her son has been in isolation in the maximum-security cells without any type of privileges. “It’s very hard for me to see my son in that situation. Without any privileges in a solitary cell. He looked thin and pale, and when I asked: ‘What’s going on with you’, he answered: ‘I don’t like being sick.’”
No Bible but with continued hopes
During the visit, Navarrete told his mother that the guards had taken away the Bible he had. “I want to leave here but, when? Mama, I do what you said: every morning I ask God, but they took away my Bible. Every morning I read Psalm 91 in a little booklet of proverbs they left me.”
Margine Blandon also complained that the jail authorities weren’t delivering the full contents of the packages sent to the prisoners. “[That’s] another great crime they’re committing against my son. I sacrifice myself week after week, and he receives nothing. It’s sad to say it, but they didn’t give him the fruits, vegetables, avocados, mixed crackers or the limes. They only bring him a little of the roasted meat and chicken.”
The parent asked the international community to press for the liberation of all the 150+ political prisoners. “I demand freedom for my son, and urgent medical attention, because we’re living in this pandemic where so many people are dying. Do you think my heart isn’t aching? He can’t even drink a hot tea. It’s so hard for me to see him through that glass like that. It’s unjust. Enough already!”
Navarrete was one of the political prisoners jailed in 2018. He spent the first 360 days in the cells known as “little hell”, before being released in 2019 under the Amnesty Law. His freedom only lasted a month, however; on July 24, 2019, he was once again imprisoned. “He’s been locked up for three years and two months: psychologically tortured in a solitary dungeon cell without company, without books, without any privileges at all, without a pencil and paper, nothing,” his mother concluded.