PRESS RELEASE
Alexander Diaz Rodriguez was removed from the hospital and sent to a correctional facility in Cape San Antonio in Pinar del Rio to make charcoal.
His mother is asking for his immediate release to save his life because he has untreated thyroid cancer.
Contacts: John Suarez (612) 367-6845 / Janisset Rivero (786) 208-6056
Alexander Diaz Rodríguez
Center for a Free Cuba, April 14, 2025, Washington, DC. Moraima Rodriguez Batista, mother of political prisoner Alexander Diaz Rodriguez, reported from Pinar del Rio that her son has been removed from the Abel Santamaria Hospital and taken to Correctional Facility 25 in the westernmost locality on the island, Cape San Antonio, to work making charcoal. Alexander needs emergency surgery for thyroid cancer, which has not been treated by authorities since he was diagnosed in October 2022.
“Alexander Díaz Rodríguez, my son, a cancer and hepatitis B patient, was in the prison ward of the Abel Santamaría Hospital, where he arrived vomiting blood. It was expected to be tuberculosis, but due to his condition, tuberculosis was ruled out and it was determined that it was the (thyroid) cancer that left him in the third stage. Today he was transferred to a camp in the town of 25 in Cabo de San Antonio, but instead to make charcoal. How can they put a sick cancer patient to make charcoal? I ask myself: aren’t they murderers? They are murderers,” Rodríguez Batista stated in a telephone conversation.
The Center for a Free Cuba released a letter sent to international organizations and governments to intercede for this prisoner’s life and for his release so he can receive the urgent medical care he needs. However, the prison authorities have sent him to a forced labor correctional center.
“I demand the immediate release of my son, who is suffering from cancer […] I demand that he be released immediately. Down with the dictatorship, no more injustice. Freedom for my son!” stated the prisoner’s mother, who has restarted the process of requesting parole, an appeal that has already been denied on three previous occasions.
The Center for a Free Cuba calls on international human rights organizations and free governments around the world to not forget the thousands of political prisoners whose lives are in danger in Cuban prisons and to hold the Havana regime accountable in these cases.
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