Eliezet Sesma Diago’s face has grown gaunt since 2021, when he entered the bone-crushing machine that is the Cuban socialist prison system. His son — barely 10 years old when his father was arrested for participating in the July 11, 2021 (11J) demonstrations — has since shot up in height and is now as tall as his father.

After more than a year in prison, Eliezet was brought before the Arroyo Naranjo Municipal Court in Havana, alongside 14 other Cubans, for his participation in protests at La Virgen del Camino, a locality in the capital’s San Miguel del Padrón municipality.

He faced grandiose charges: assault on authority, contempt, public disorder, and incitement to commit a crime. The initial demand from the prosecution was even harsher, seeking prison sentences of up to 10 years.

Family members told the independent press that they considered the proposed penalty disproportionate, noting that no one — not even a police officer — was injured or hurt at La Virgen del Camino. The 11J events were peaceful demonstrations.

A friend of Eliezet — who prefers to remain anonymous and with whom I spoke for this article — says that on that day, he went out to shout for Cuba’s freedom and for his own rights and those of his young son.

She describes him as a naturally peace-loving man; when faced with aggression from Revolutionary National Police (PNR) officers against protesters like himself, his reaction was simply to raise his arms and shout, “No to violence!” Yet, “the police beat him — and beat him severely.”

At his trial, a police officer testified to the contrary, claiming that Eliezet wore his hair in braids and threw a stone at him from a distance of over 60 meters while amidst a crowd of more than 100 people. However, his friend points out inconsistencies in that testimony. The accused has never worn braids, and — humanly speaking — it is difficult to identify who threw a stone from such a distance and within such a large crowd.

A nine-year prison sentence ultimately fell upon Eliezet’s slender frame.

Cuban prisons reek of sulfur.

Recent testimonies from inmates, family members, and independent organizations describe the socialist prison system as one marked by overcrowding, shortages of food and water, a lack of medical care and medication, poor sanitary conditions, violence, and excessive disciplinary punishments, as well as restrictions on communication and visits.

For political prisoners, all this is compounded by a series of reprisals that include isolation, punitive transfers, threats, and torture. Eliezet lives under this Sword of Damocles.

Meanwhile, life outside stumbles on. “His son is growing up without his only role model — at an age when he needs him most, adolescence; his mother was never in the picture, and as his father, he took on full responsibility for his upbringing and education,” the friend recounted.

“It is painful. Hearing about it wounds the soul; it leaves me in tears.” She has heard the broken voice of Eliezet — a desperate father watching as, “for no reason, he has been torn away from his reason for living.”

Elsewhere, the streets of socialist Cuba are teeming with a new drug called El Químico (The Chemical), as well as violence, hunger, and misery; and from behind bars, Eliezet worries about the dangers facing a teenager who does not understand why his father is in prison.

The news reaching the prisoner is far from good. “He was robbed twice in the small room where he lived. Eliezet’s son was left with nothing,” the friend reported.

The Havana regime announced a pardon for 2,010 inmates in early March. However, human rights organizations on the island noted that only a minuscule percentage of those released were political prisoners.

Eliezet and his friend believe that only “a miracle” can put an end to the sentence, the first half of which has already been served. Political changes could come before the year is out. But the days go by, and the distance between a father and his son grows — something only God can mend. That is the only hope for a country adrift, drowning in the suffering of the innocent.