PRESS RELEASE
Mother of Political Prisoner Alexander Díaz Rodríguez, Whose Sentence Has Just Been Increased, Denounces Attempt to Assassinate Her Son in Prison
AUDIO: https://youtu.be/X-1XPSy66J4?si=lphalCfU7l6WMJBt
Contacts: John Suárez (612) 367-6845 / Janisset Rivero (786) 208-6056
Center for a Free Cuba, November 4, 2025, Washington, D.C. Moraima Rodríguez Batista, mother of political prisoner Alexander Díaz Rodríguez—currently held at Kilo 5½ Prison in Pinar del Río—denounced this Monday that her son suffered an attempted murder this past weekend after being transferred to a cell block where 80% of the inmate population consists of dangerous criminals.
“My son was being held in Company 3 of the KIlo 5½ prison and was moved to another block within the same prison, but to Company 1, which holds 85 dangerous inmates —murderers and violent criminals. On Saturday at dawn, between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m., two inmates tried to suffocate him with a pillow. The inmate who sleeps above him—my son sleeps on the bottom bunk—jumped down when he felt the bed shaking as a result of my son’s moving and kicking. That’s when the two others, who were trying to smother him with a pillow, ran off. His cellmate sat my son up, fanned him, gave him water—he was nearly unconscious—until he came to. There were no guards, no intervention, nothing. The next day, Sunday morning at 5:40, when they called for wake-up, the inmates told the guard what had happened, but no statement was taken. The assault was ignored. This morning, when my son called me, he told me what had happened from Saturday to Sunday,” said Moraima Rodríguez Batista from Havana.
Alexander Díaz Rodríguez is imprisoned for participating in the mass protests of July 2021 and was sentenced to 5 years. In October 2022, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and later contracted Hepatitis B at the provincial hospital in Pinar del Río. He also suffers from severe malnutrition. Authorities have denied him adequate medical care and recently extended his sentence by two and a half years because he refused to participate in political activities within the prison and declined to wear the standard inmate uniform, charging him with the alleged crime of “disrespect.”
“A fabricated sentence by the Kilo 5½ prison authorities. Is it a crime to think differently? Is it a crime not to wear a prison uniform? That’s not a crime. […] Now my son must serve 7 years and 6 months simply for saying he would not participate in a morning political assembly at the prison and for refusing to wear prison clothes. My son was sentenced to 5 years for the July 11 protests; he had no rights, and none of the three requests for medical parole were considered. He was also not included in any of the prisoner releases. I demand my son’s freedom and call for his immediate release. I make a plea to the free world and human rights organizations to consider the life of my son, Alexander Díaz Rodríguez. He has committed no crime that justifies a sentence of 7 years and 6 months—only for thinking differently and refusing to act the way they want him to,” Rodríguez Batista added.
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