"When I stretched my arms, I could touch two opposite walls."
Yon Goicoechea pens a New York Times Op-Ed from the dark confines of his jail cell. The three minutes that you spend reading it are three minutes of freedom that you gift a political prisoner.
Yon Goicoechea’s prison OpEd in the New York Times this morning is incredibly affecting.
Last October, a court granted me parole — but my jailers ignored that order. Three months ago, the prosecutor in my case closed the investigation, establishing that I was not guilty of any crimes (I had faced trumped-up charges of possession of explosives). This means that there are no active judicial proceedings against me — I’m simply being held hostage in violation of the Constitution. The United Nations, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have all described my detention as arbitrary and called for my release.
Of all the things you could say about Yon Goicoechea that are true, this one isn’t the most important, but it’s one of the least appreciated: he’s an amazingly gifted writer.
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