"This happened because the people that day were already tired of seeing the injustice that the leaders in the provinces and mainly in the country were doing. Families were left without food, the children without milk, without medicine... There were blackouts are every five hours, sometimes during eight or ten hours, but there are places with fourteen hours long blackouts. The people got indignated and suddenly came the moment when this all happened." "What were the people shouting?" "Well, people were screaming for freedom, they were screaming for food, medicine... They were screaming for what they needed. And mainly they were screaming for freedom."
"The treatment was very bad. They took me to the office, there the inspector yelled at me, threatened me that they were going to give me thirty years of prison, or that they were going to shoot me. The things that amazed me and scared me, because I was fifteen years and I had never been in a position like this. They changed inspectors, just like today they change inspectors, back then it was like that too. They were inspectors who treated the case with a stronger rigor, that is, if they had to hit you, they hit you. If they had to mistreat you, they mistreated you. Their goal was for you to tell them if there were other people, if you did it. You could repeat more than fifty times that you hadn't done anything and they instisted that you did it, leading you to that fear that you were going to say yes, that you were going to tell a lie or something that would implicate another person or implicate yourself."
"My childhood was not very good, because at the age of nine... I was at the door of my house when two policemen arrived like at that time who were in civilian clothes and asked for my father. The police accused him. My mother came out and asked me what happened to me... I was sitting at the door, I was nine years old. They took him away and when we heard from my father again, my father was in jail in Havana. The government was going to get him out of the country. From that moment on I asked about my dad... I asked my mom what had happened? And my mom didn't know. When heard of him again, my dad was already in the United States. And since them, at school there was a lot of humiliation, they told me and my brothers that we were worms."
Ricardo Enrique Torres Hernández was born on November 9, 1971 in the city of Santiago de Cuba. He comes from a family with low economic resources and actually until nowadays, he shares the house with his mother and his brothers. One of the moments that most influenced his life was the arrest and subsequent forced departure of his father that occurred when he was 9 years old. Ricardo does not know exactly what happened, but based on his neighbors’ comments, he thinks that his father did not agree with the government and the Cuban authorities decided to send him to the United States, probably during the Mariel exodus in 1980. Since then , the young boy experienced mistreatment by teachers who considered him and his brothers as a problematic element based on the fame of his father, who disappeared and never had any contact with Ricardo again. At the age of 14, he had a conflict with some neighbors who belonged to supporters of the regime. They accused him of disseminating anti-Castro propaganda and the trial resulted in nine months in the region’s prisons. After his release, Ricardo has always had great difficulties trying to find a permanent job. Almost everywhere they were opposed to employing him because of his criminal record. In 2014 he joined one of the most important political activism organizations in Cuba, the Patriotic Union of Cuba, also known as UNPACU. His involvement resulted in successive arrests that continue to this day. During the arrests, he had to face mistreatment by the authorities several times, including beatings, arbitrary fines, and persecution. After his participation in the demonstrations on July 11, 2021, he spent 21 days in detention along with the other protest participants.
