While Yasmany Jorge Borges Alfonso was detained in a Cuban prison, four police officers beat him until he was unconscious. They took turns hitting him in the head with their batons, each blow harder than the last. As Alfonso lay on the rock-hard prison floor, his forehead dripped with blood. The gashes from his assault were so deep, he needed four stiches. He also lost a tooth from the beating.
After Raul refused to join the Cuban military and to take up arms against civilians, police hauled him away from the soccer field and took him to jail, where they threatened him and brutally attacked him. At just 19, he felt he had no choice but to leave behind the oppressive dictatorship of his home country. He came to the U.S. hopeful that he would be treated more fairly.
In March 2018, Cuban police took Adrian Toledo Flores to a prison cell, violently beat him, and threw him against a sink.
As he started to bleed, one of the officers said, 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 deserve to be in this country.鈥�
The city of Gardendale, Alabama, today began a week in which it will allow people who are facing municipal offenses to clear their cases, without being arrested.
Twitter temporarily suspended my account this week after I posted a tweet that opposed far-right extremism.
Around the world and increasingly in the United States, there鈥檚 a growing consensus that solitary confinement of incarcerated persons is, at best, an ineffective and inhumane practice with little or no carceral benefit and, at worst, outright torture.
Solitary confinement is a wasteful and destructive practice that does not improve public safety, and harms the mental health of those subjected to it.
Facing gang violence and extortion in Guatemala, J.V.S. and his 5-year-old daughter fled their home to seek refuge in the U.S.
