Since we were born, we were indoctrinated
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Javier Delgado Torna was born in 1968 in Caibarién in the Villa Clara province, Cuba. His father was a fisherman and a member of the Communist Party. Javier studied until grade 12 and lived a rebellious adolescence, although since his parents were workers, he received a scholarship in junior high school, where he learned to be independent. When the communist regimes in Europe began to collapse in 1989, and as a consequence the Special Period was approaching to Cuba, Javier for the first time came out to demonstrate his dissatisfaction with what was happening in Cuba at that time, although he still did not consider himself an opponent, but more well a reactionary. Due to his protest activities, he was imprisoned for the first time for three years since 1991 and lived through the scarcity of the Special Period in prison. That first time in prison, he managed to convert the opinion of the other prisoners so that they respected him as a political prisoner instead of a common one. After being released, he did not find support among family or friends, which he attributes to the constant pressure from the Cuban regime. He continued with his opposition activities, traveled a lot between the provinces, demonstrated, put flowers on the Malecón in Havana, until in 1999 he was arrested again, this time for eight years for the crime of propaganda and contempt. During the massive wave of protests in Cuba on July 11, 2021, Javier organized a protest to which hundreds of people joined, and that day at 11 p.m. they came to look for him at his house and in a judicial process manipulated, he was sentenced to three and a half years of imprisonment in the Guamajal prison. However, his deteriorated state of health due to serious heart problems linked to hypertension and diabetes raised strong international support and finally in September 2022 he received extra-penal leave. Despite being formally sentenced, Javier continues in his opposition activities.
