Family of 16-year-old teen imprisoned in Cuba makes urgent plea for his release

The family of a 16-year-old imprisoned in Cuba following an anti-government protest is pleading for his release amid worries over his health and the prospect of a long prison sentence.

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“We still see him as a little boy,” Elier Muir, 58, an evangelical pastor, told Noticias Telemundo by phone, as he described the bag of sweets and treats he brought to his son, Jonathan David Muir Burgos, two weeks ago. It was the first visit allowed at the maximum security Canaleta prison, in Central Cuba, where the teen is being held since mid-March.

“We cannot accept seeing him grow up in prison and become an adult,” he said. “My son is not a criminal, not a delinquent nor a vandal, as they have tried to discredit, defame and demoralize him.”

Jonathan Muir was arrested for participating in an anti-government protest in his hometown city of Morón on the evening of March 13. The protest damaged a Communist Party office, with some protesters throwing rocks at the building and hurling furniture into a bonfire amid chants of freedom.

Elier Muir said authorities arrested his son a few days after the protest and charged him with sabotage. If the teen is found guilty, he could remain imprisoned until he’s well over 30 or even 50 years old, depending on the severity of the court’s sentencing, according to attorneys consulted by Noticias Telemundo.

Noticias Telemundo requested comment on the case by phone and email from the Cuban government through its International Press Center, but did not receive a response.

Attorney Eloy Viera, who’s originally from Cuba, doesn’t believe the arrest is just a scare tactic. He noted that, unlike most countries, Cuba considers 16-year-olds to be adults under the law and can apply the full force of the law.

“The fact that he’s been transferred to prison is because the prosecutor’s office has decided to impose the precautionary measure of provisional detention,” Viera said, adding that the protests in Morón “won’t be something the regime lets slide.” He noted the town has seen the largest displays of rebellion against the government since the unprecedented, large-scale protests of July 2021, which culminated in many arrests and long prison sentences.

Jonathan Muir, a slight teen who’s 5’6” and weighs 105 pounds, suffers from dyshidrosis, a chronic skin disease. According to his father, he was scheduled to receive a drug treatment that he hasn’t been able to get in prison.

The teen’s imprisonment has garnered international attention; the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has urged Cuba to adopt the necessary measures to protect the teens’s “rights to life, personal integrity and health, in connection with the right to freedom of expression.” Amnesty International cited the arrests in Morón, including those of “at least two teenagers,” as a backdrop of “intensifying state repression.”

In the United States, Reps. Carlos Giménez and Maria Elvira Salazar, both Republicans from Florida, have called for his release, with Salazar writing on X that “his only ‘crime’ was speaking out.” Mike Hammer, the American chargé d’affaires in Cuba, told Elier Muir by phone that the U.S. was worried about his son’s case and they were going to “see what we can do so he could be freed.”

The day after the protests in Morón, Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, stated on X that he understood the anger over power outages, but that “there will be no tolerance for vandalism and violence.”

The teen’s father claims the Cuban government is using his son as an “example” to discourage political dissent, while punishing him for operating an evangelical church, Tiempos de Cosecha (Times of Harvest) inside his home without the authorization of the Communist Party.

Prisoners Defenders, a Madrid-based human rights nongovernmental organization, estimated in March that at least 1,092 people were behind bars in Cuba for criticizing the government and its leaders, including 33 minors. Activists and human rights groups estimate that dozens of them are still serving long sentences following the July 11, 2021, protests — the largest street demonstrations in the nearly 70 years of the Castro revolution.

The Cuban government has been under increasing pressure from the Trump administration, which has threatened to “take over Cuba” at any moment if the government doesn’t make a substantial shift in economic and political matters, including releasing political prisoners.

In a recent interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the Cuban president said that the “narrative” that anyone who speaks against the government is thrown into jail is a “big lie.” He also repeated previous accusations by the Cuban government that opponents to the government are agents “financed by terrorist organizations” in the U.S.

Jonathan Muir’s father points to the family’s humble home in Morón — with its rough, half-plastered walls — to refute Díaz-Canel’s claim that families like theirs, openly opposed to the regime, receive money from the U.S.

“We are not salaried employees, which is another characteristic they want to use to denigrate and discredit us,” Muir said. If they received dollars from the “Yankee empire,” he added, his son would have medicine and food on the table, and his house wouldn’t be just bare brick.

Jonathan’s sister, Dayana Muir Marrero, said her brother isn’t “a bad boy” as they want to portray him.

“If being a vandal means being tired of suffering firsthand, living with an illness where the necessary conditions for treatment aren’t available, and being tired of being silent and having the courage to shout ‘freedom,’ to ask for a little food, a little electricity; if being a vandal is that, then I would accept that he is a vandal,” she said.

Jonathan Muir’s father said he entrusts his son to what he calls “Christ’s lawyers.” He said his son has had two government-appointed lawyers, which makes him have little faith in a fair defense. “I hope Jonathan will be out on the street very soon,” Muir said. “Let’s hope there’s no trial. That’s what we’re asking God for.”

Mario F. Lleonart, a Cuban pastor based in Miami, said he has been trying to get medical help for the teen in the U.S., but stated that humanitarian parole is no longer in effect.

“We got him an appointment at a hospital in Washington, and we’ve had to reschedule it eight times while waiting for a humanitarian visa,” said Lleonart, coordinator of the Patmos Institute, a group that promotes religious freedom.

The teen’s family said they want to safeguard his physical safety but also his dignity. Jonathan, his father said, is a Christian teenager who spent his days playing the piano at religious services officiated by Muir. The family said they want the world to know that the teen’s dream was to become a teacher for children with disabilities, but poverty and fragile health prevented him from attending school since it was too far away.

Determined to make something of himself, according to his family, Jonathan learned a trade and became a baker of confections. His father said that when the young man learned to make his first Caribbean dish — the cornmeal and sugar fritter known as chivirico — he began contributing to the household expenses.

Elier Muir said he’ll keep telling his son’s story to anyone who will listen.

“Our son is thin, he’s desperate for us to get him out of there. He tells us, ‘I can’t take it anymore, I can’t stand it’ … We feel his absence when we go to eat, to pray, to try to rest, because we don’t sleep,” Muir said.

He added he’ll keep talking about his son. “I don’t care,” Muir said. “Let them shoot me in the head or throw me in jail.”

An earlier version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.