With Reports Of Hundreds Imprisoned, Former Political Prisoners Recall Torture Under Cuban Regime

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Getting information from Cuba has become even more difficult in the days since the government started its brutal crackdown.

The internet remains restricted, but some videos continue to filter out of the island.

One video shows a man fighting for freedom by himself.

A source tells CBS4 News that many of the streets are empty. The communist government has arrested hundreds or they have been 'disappeared' by the regime.

While many wonder what could be happening, two former political prisoners told CBS4 they know first hand, what is going on.

"They will torture you continuously. They will not stop until you no longer claim liberty for Cuba," said Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez, political prisoner for 17 years.

Jorge Luis was sentenced to five years initially but was given additional years for refusing to wear a prisoner's uniform and for going against the Castro communist regime.

He says he was tortured in solitary confinement.

"They strip you off your clothes, so you freeze throughout the night. They inject you with unknown substances. The water I drank was out of my toilet and every day when they would kill my friends, who did just what those in Cuba are doing today, I would wonder if it was my day to go."

The film 'Plantados' depicts the horrors of political imprisonment.

The Plantados, 'the planted,' were prisoners who refused a re-education plan in exchange for a sentence reduction.

Jorge Moreno said he vividly remembers those times like it was yesterday.

"I didn't have a cell. They laid me in between two walls. It felt like you were being ironed. I barely ate any food." said Jorge Moreno, a former political prisoner.

"I couldn't even move in there. I would just pray for the moment that they would take me out," he recalls.

Although both these political prisoners suffered, they say they are proud of those who have flooded the streets of the troubled island, fighting against 62 years of no human rights.