Transgender woman who protested against Cuban government released from prison
A transgender woman with HIV who participated in an anti-government protest in Cuba in 2021 has been released from prison. Luz Escobar, an independent Cuban journalist who lives in Madrid, on Saturday posted a picture of Brenda Díaz and her mother on her Facebook page. “Brenda Díaz, a Cuban political prisoner from July 11, was released a few hours ago,” wrote Escobar.
Authorities arrested Díaz in Güira de Melena in Artemisa province after she participated in an anti-government protest on July 11, 2021.
She is one of the hundreds of people who authorities took into custody during and after the demonstrations. A Havana court in 2022 sentenced Díaz to 14 years in prison.
She appealed her sentence, but Cuba’s People’s Supreme Court upheld it. Escobar in her Facebook post said authorities “forced” Díaz to “be in a men’s prison, one of the tortures she suffered.” Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro who directs the country’s National Center for Sexual Education, dismissed reports that Díaz suffered mistreatment in prison.
