“We have been repressed, acts of repudiation is one of the most grotesque ways of repressing a human being. After leaving with someone else like Fidel Castro, how he used the 'black flags' [the raising of the 138 black flags-one for each year of fighting against the 'empire' in 2006]. It's hard, it's hard, it's hard for you to receive a beating, to be dragged 50 meters, to spend 72 hours in a cell without eating or drinking water, for bringing a flower to [José] Martí. Like on January 28, 2011, for bringing a flower to honor our national apostle, the universal soul of Cubans, I spent 3 days in a dungeon and received a horrible beating, and they drag while the asfalt was burning my feet plants once I dropped my shoes. I have suffered this."
“As such, I remember what the repression was like when one arrived at mass on Sunday. There were some brigades called 'the checas'. I'm not going to tell you that they hit the children, but they did hit the elderly, all the elderly. They brought some kind of wrapped newspapers or magazines, and with these they beat those who dared to enter the church. Because they said 'No one can enter the church'. They were pelting stones at the temples. All these beautiful temples with glassware and precious tiles that made images of saints and virgins, they destroyed all of this with stones, eggs, pieces of asphalt, with everything they could throw at the temples. Many priests of that time ended up in the human concentration camp in Ciegos de Ávila."
“The hunger strike is within the resources of the peaceful struggle. The hunger strike is something that is very difficult. It is very difficult because you are fighting against your own body, against your own organism, against your own life. As you're thinking you could lose your life. The hunger at the moment of despair, when there are no more resources left. When nobody listens to you, when the impunity of a system comes to such level that you have no rights. You have to put up with everything they want. So the only way for the national community to show solidarity for people of good will, and to see that the human race is being harmed and that this system destroys us like if we were rabbits, is to go on a hunger strike. I do not consider that anyone would do it just for pleasure."
“When the State Security comes, within the third search of the house they took even the new agency machine that my dad had brought from the United States, a Chevrolet, Impala 59 that was of this model, there were only four of them. They took the car, they took the spare tire, they took everything. They re-searched the garages, the place completely, and they didn't realize the number of weapons that were left under the floor [the wooden floor of the house]. This car was being used by General Eliseo Romero who then was still not dead yet, head of State Security, since the car was confiscated from my house. They took it away until it was confiscated. My dad's weapons, because my dad had firearms, since he was a merchant, he moved a lot of money, he was authorized to use firearms, he had two revolvers, a pistol, and a rifle that was almost always in the trunk of the car".
Guillermo del Sol Pérez was born in 1965 in the Republic of Cuba, into a family persecuted by the communist regime. At the beginning of the nineties, Guillermo approached the opposition organizations to the Cuban Government, to promote human rights and democracy in his country. As an instrument to express his disagreement and despair with the regime, he went on hunger strikes, even though they almost cost him his life. Guillermo has carried out a total of 14 hunger strikes, the last one in 2019 in order to draw international attention to the problem of the travel ban and his campaign “Not even 1 more regulated”. Neither Guillermo nor his son Adrián del Sol Alfonso can leave the island, regardless of the fact that his son suffers from a serious eye disease and needs medical attention that is not available in Cuba. Due to his religious opposition activities and as an independent journalist, Guillermo has faced repression, prisons, jails, punishment cells or dungeons. Although State Security is constantly watching and threatening him, he does not lose hope and is convinced that the people of Cuba know that they have to fight for his salvation, and he is willing to fight too.
