"They Made Our Political Prisoners and Their Families Invisible"

It’s tough to have a brother who has been a political prisoner twice: in 2018 and now. It is painful because we continue to be victims of abuse when we go to visit him in prison. They leave us for long hours waiting under the sun and when we manage to enter, they search us and grope our private parts.

When we are already inside, they do not let us speak freely with our prisoner, because there is always someone listening to us. In addition, on each visit they make us sign a letter in which we say that our relatives are well and that we commit not to give interviews or write anything on social media because otherwise we will also be imprisoned under accusations of cybercrime.

I feel as though they stole our identity because when my brother was imprisoned the first time, I was able to denounce on social networks all the abuses he experienced in prison. But today, they have managed to make our political prisoners and their families invisible, because almost no one knows by name and surname what each person goes through.

In 2018, we used to go to national human rights organizations to denounce, we held press conferences and we were able to set up pickets with banners in the faces of the policemen. That’s over. Today, the only thing that remains is total silence, because we know that the dictatorships' actions have become increasingly criminal.

We feel that our hands and feet are tied, but above all, we are gagged; because we cannot speak about what we are experiencing. About the siege in our homes, about people following us when we go out on the street, the threats, of the mistreatment of our prisoners, of their health situation, of the torture and isolation.

It has also been difficult to face the fear of people who have known you all your life, with whom you used to have a good relationship, and who now don't want to talk to you for fear of reprisals from the dictatorship.

This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by our staff. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.