Manoli Mayo and her daughter Alba have decided to go on a hunger strike from this Friday, after her husband and father, respectively, who is serving a sentence in the Tahíche prison, has been denied the third degree. The man, according to his family, will also stop eating inside the prison. "Whoever does things should pay for them, but I think my husband has already paid enough," says the prisoner's wife.
Francisco Valentín Troya, 45 years old, is in jail for several convictions for robberies, according to his wife. "He got hooked on drugs and committed several robberies, but never with violence," she says. In total, this man was sentenced to ten years in prison, of which he has already served almost all of it. In fact, according to his family, he should already be free on October 18, 2013.
First, he was in prison in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria from where he was transferred to León. Now, since July 2011 he has been in the Tahíche prison. "He waited to come here to ask for the third degree," says Manoli Mayo, who says that, when he was in León, he was given "ten permits, one of them even to come to Lanzarote."
However, on February 29, an evaluation board of the Tahíche prison denied him such consideration. "They say he is conflictive and that he tried to force a door, but it is a lie. What he was doing was helping a colleague to go through a sliding door that had become threshed", says Manoli Mayo. This woman also assures that the board team "did not even talk to him to evaluate him" and that they denied it "because the educator barely knows him, because he was previously in another module."
However, Manoli acknowledges that, around the month of October, her husband also had a confrontation with another prisoner. "He was a conflictive man and we and he had asked for him to be changed from module, but they did not listen to us." Therefore, according to Manoli, he was imposed "about four or six days of isolation." "He already served his sanction and then got two meritorious leaves for good behavior."
Therefore, Manoli does not understand why her husband is not granted the third degree, while other people who have been "less time in prison, yes." "Before I believed in Justice, but now I am ceasing to believe", points out this woman who, from this Friday, will go on a hunger strike in front of the doors of the Tahíche prison. "We will be there until they give us a solution."
"I need him at home"
Manoli says that she "needs" her husband at home, since the family is not going through a very good economic situation. "I am sick with arthritis and I have not been able to work for three years. Before I was self-employed and I did not have unemployment for that reason", says this woman, who has two children, one of 18 years and another of 22 years, who also do not work.
Manoli received aid from the Government of the Canary Islands and the Arrecife City Council, but according to her, she has stopped receiving it since January. "They have already run out," says this woman, who says that she has gone to the Department of Social Welfare of the Cabildo to ask for help, as well as to the Deputy of the Common and the Ombudsman. "I have even addressed the King," says Manoli, while showing a letter from the Royal House, in which they tell her that her writing has been sent to the Ministry of Justice.
