Villa Marista is a prison in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

, notorious for its detention of political prisoners by the

n national security agency. Its prisoners have included dissident

Vladimiro Roca Vladimiro Roca Antúnez (born 21 December 1942) is a Cuban dissident and leader of the illegal Cuban Social-Democratic Party. A member of the "Group of Four", he was imprisoned from 1997 to 2002 after co-authoring a paper calling for democratic re ...

and politician Jesús Escandell.

Villa Marista school

Villa Marista was originally a Catholic school for boys. Prior to the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...

, the school was run by the

Marist Brothers The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic religious institute of brothers. In 1817, St. Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from France, founded the Marist Brothe ...

. After the revolutionary government expropriated the school and grounds from the Marist Brothers, the brothers were spread to other Marist schools around the world, including Miami, Florida USA, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. In addition to the school in Havana the Marist Brothers also had another school in the city of Cienfuegos.

References

External links

A Visit to Villa Marista, Cuban State Security Headquarters (Video)
Buildings and structures in Havana Prisons in Cuba {{Prison-stub