Political prisoner Mayelín Rodríguez Prado
On October 16, 2024 Freedom House released its 2024 Freedom on the Net report. The report mentions that ” Cuban authorities sentenced a woman to 15 years in prison for sedition and “enemy propaganda” after she shared images of protests on social media, including a video recording of police attacking demonstrators.” The woman, Mayelín Rodríguez Prado, was 22 years old at the time of her arrest, and mother to a daughter less than a year old. Mayelin was arrested at her home, and held in solitary confinement at a State Security facility, reported Carla Gloria Colomé for EL PAÍS on May 2, 2024. The Freedom on the Net 2024 regional snapshot found that Cuba was the lowest scoring country in the Americas with 20 out of a possible 100 score, followed by Venezuela 30/100 and Nicaragua 41/100.
Independent journalist and political prisoner Yeris Curbelo Aguilera
Daughter and father jailed for their defense of human rights: Félix Navarro Rodríguez and Sayli Navarro Alvarez
Felix Navarro is a member of the Frankfurt based International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) board of directors. He has been arbitrarily jailed since July 12, 2021. Sayli Navarro became a Lady in White, together with her mom. campaigning for her dad’s release following his arrest in the Spring of 2003. Sayli was also detained on July 12, 2021, but was released hours later, and had been staying with her mother, who is in poor health. She has also spoken out against her father’s arbitrary imprisonment. Sayli was taken, with her hands and feet chained, to prison on April 18, 2022. On March 18, 2023, a recording was released of Sayli stating that state security is pressuring her to go into exile in order to get out of prison, and that she rejected their offer. They are also members of the Cuba Decide campaign.
Yandier García Labrada serving an unjust five year prison sentence.
“On October 6, 2020, my brother was detained for claiming his rights in a queue (line to obtain food and basic necessities). A repressor pushed him and assaulted him, and then more State Security agents arrived and called the police. He was shouting ‘Down with the dictatorship’,” Iran Almaguer Labrada says.Yandier García Labrada is serving a five-year sentence for the crimes of contempt for authority and propagation of epidemics. Since the beginning of his imprisonment, he has been transferred to various prisons and has suffered isolation, transfers to punishment cells, denial of medical attention, and restrictions on communication with his family members. Since January 19, 2023, he has been held in the Guabineyón 8 correctional work center in the province of Las Tunas. The prison authorities have denied him the benefits of home visits and parole, even though he meets the regulatory requirements.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara on July 11, 2021.
Zoila Rodríguez Marzo and her children Katia, Exen together with their father Fredi Beirut. Foto © Facebook/Zoila Rodríguez
Court in Havana confirmed the 20-year prison sentence for Katia Beirut (age 36) and her father Fredy Beirut for their participation in public protests in La Güinera on July 12, 2021. Katia and her father took to the streets to protest the arrest of Exen Beirut, Katia’s brother and Fredy’s son, which occurred in the city of Guantanamo on July 11, 2021. Exen’s prosecutor’s request is for 7 years of prison and It will be confirmed on December 29 by the Guantánamo prosecutor’s office.
“My children just went out to the streets and demonstrated peacefully. There is no proof that my kids have thrown a rock or done anything wrong. I think there is no reason for a people to go out onto the streets and say ‘Homeland and Life’ or we want a change […] there are no reasons for these people to be sentenced for that many years. That is unfair, what was seen in that trial is unfair. It was a theater. There they read a paper. Those people who were reading that paper were shaking, their hands were shaking, it was clear that they did not want to read it. Those people did not want to read that paper, you could see that they felt bad because they knew that they were committing an injustice to all those people who were there, ”Zoila Rodríguez Marzo, mother of the Beirut siblings, reported from Havana through an interview conducted by Palenque Vision and published by Cubanet. (https://www.youtube.com/
The trial of Katia and her father Fredy Beirut began on December 20th and the sentence was handed down on December 23rd by the Havana prosecutor’s office.
According to Zoila Rodríguez, her relatives were tried along with 17 other Cubans implicated in the massive July demonstrations. “My family, like all the others, collapsed. Those children who go to school, how, in what way can they force those children to say “Homeland or Death”, how are they going to say “Homeland or Death”, if these children do not know how to explain that their mother has to serve a 20-year sanction . […] That is why I ask the world, all the institutions, I ask the UN, human rights, I ask everyone, please cooperate with us, help us. […] Please, there are many mothers crying, there are many families suffering ”, added Zoila Rodríguez.
Brothers Frandy González, Santiago Vázquez and José Antonio Gómez are political prisoners
Luis Frómeta Compte
Victim of brutal attack in prison
On December 1, 2023 his family alerted the international community over social media that Luis was the victim of a brutal attack on November 30. 2023 by common prisoners. His daughter Janie Frometa posted the following message on Facebook in Spanish and German translated here to English: “We just received news from Cuba that dad was brutally beaten by other prisoners, they even held him down so he couldn’t defend himself. Two of Dad’s jailed friends called and informed our family. Unfortunately, we don’t know anything else. Please share this message to highlight the brutality in the prisons.” Brizaida Abad Igarza, wife of Frómeta Compte, from the Combinado del Este, in Havana, released a video on Facebook with Luis’s sister, Ramona Frómeta Compte, in which they express concern for not knowing his health status after the attack. Janie Frómeta, in German on Facebook denounced the physical assault against her dad, and called for German authorities to intervene in the case, to ensure that her father returns to Europe. Through tears, she asks for the freedom of all Cuban political prisoners. On December 2, 2023 over X she gave an update on her father’s plight. Brizaida Abad Igarza, wife of Frómeta Compte and Luis’s sister, Ramona Frómeta Compte are still at the Combinado del Este prison waiting to see Luis Frómeta Compte in person, and ascertain what condition he is in. “My family continues at the Combinado del Este. They continue waiting to see our father in person. They will not return home until they see my father in person. Right now they need all your support. Therefore I ask you to share this video. Please share this video. Thank you.” Eventually it was learned that Luis had suffered serious injuries, including a fractured nasal septum.
“Donaida Pérez Paseiro:: “My husband, Loreto Hernández García, is dying in prison”
Cuba: End harassment of journalists, writers, and artists
16 October 2024: PEN International, PEN Cuba Writers in Exile, and Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) denounce a new wave of attacks against independent voices. In recent weeks, journalists, artists, and writers have decried arbitrary arrests, harassment, and threats by authorities, signalling a pattern of censorship amid the passage of new laws limiting the exercise of free expression.
Recent repressive acts have occurred following the entering into force of the Law on Social Communication earlier this month, as well as Decree 101/2014 Regulation of the Law, and 102/2024 Regulation for the exercise of advertising and sponsorship, criticized by local, regional, and international media outlets and organizations.
The Law on Social Communication, along with the disproportionate use of criminal law, promotes the application of additional Penal Code offenses to target critical voices, charging them with crimes such as slander in “social networks” (Article 391), mercenaryism (Article 135), allegedly obtaining resources to pay for activities against state security (Article 143), or disobedience (Article 185).
Reporting from September 2024 documents a wave of repression against independent writers and artists. On 12 September, writer and academic Alina Bárbara López Hernández was expelled from the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) following a public post she made on social media about “internal information about the disciplinary process against me and [that] ‘offended’ a member of the organization.” According to her testimony, other grounds for her expulsion included “carrying out activities against the revolution,” “posts against the top leadership of the revolution,” and “showing solidarity with the July 11 movement.”
On 18 September, it was reported that Cuban academic and essayist Jenny Pantoja Torres was detained and released hours later, following police surveillance and threats from State Security and the National Police. That same day, writer and humorist Jorge Fernández Era, historian and author Alexander Hall Lujardo, and art critic and columnist Raymar Aguado Hernández, were summoned for questioning due to their social media posts, activism, and criticism of the authorities. Jorge Fernández Era was summoned by the Ministry of Security to its headquarters in Villa Marista, Havana. According to a post on his Facebook page, he spent nearly eight hours there, during which he was interrogated about his social media posts and threatened with legal action.
On the same day as Fernández Era’s interrogation, academics and activists Alexander Hall Lujardo and Raymar Aguado Hernández, members of the Socialists in Struggle collective, were also summoned by State Security for questioning. According to the digital outlet Periodismo de izquierda, Alexander, who also writes for elTOQUE, “intuits that in his case it is an interrogation as part of the raid against independent journalism currently being carried out by state security.”
PEN International, Artists At Risk Connection, and PEN Cuba in Exile call on the Cuban authorities to:
- Cease all harassment and violence against critical voices.
- Release artists and writers imprisoned for exercising their freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
- Repeal the Law on Social Communication due to its restrictive impact on the right to information and freedom of expression.
Relevant Context on Free Expression in Cuba:
Social Communication Law
On 4 October 2024, the Law on Social Communication came into force, along with Decree 101/2014 Regulation of the Law and 102/2024 Regulation for the exercise of advertising and sponsorship. The Law on Social Communication imposes extreme control over media, journalists, and public opinion. For instance, Article 13.1.2 prohibits published content from defaming, slandering, or insulting State authorities and from being used to “subvert the constitutional order and destabilize the socialist state of law and social justice”. Media outlets that fail to comply face suspension, cancellation, or website removal. Meanwhile, the Institute of Information and Social Communication centralizes advertising decisions and content regulations.
Sustained harassment and forced exile of artists and writers
PEN International and ARC have documented harassment and silencing led by the Cuban government and aimed at limiting independent creative expression, in some cases, forcing individuals into exile. PEN International’s Case List 2023/2024, numerous releases, and ARC, PEN International, and Cubalex’s 2023 report Método Cuba: Independent Artists’ Testimonies of Forced Exile, explore the wide array of repressive tactics used by the government to delegitimise and marginalise dissident voices.
Journalist Yeris Curbelo Aguilera sentenced to 2 years in prison in Cuba
Miami, October 3, 2024—Cuban authorities should re-examine the case of journalist Yeris Curbelo Aguilera, who was sentenced to two years in prison on September 24, and consider dropping all charges against him, said the Committee to Protect Journalists on Tuesday.
“The Cuban government continues to be nothing short of draconian in its efforts to squash independent reporting on the island,” said CPJ U.S., Canada, and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen in Washington, D.C. “Cuban authorities must release journalist Yeris Curbelo Aguilera and should stop harassing Rafa Escalona.”
Curbelo Aguilera, a 39-year-old journalist and civil rights activist with the non-state media outlet Palenque Visión, was arrested June 16 and released on bail June 18 following a physical altercation with local youths, whom his family alleged were acting as government agents in the confrontation. One of the youths was also prosecuted for the incident but was acquitted at trial, his wife claimed.
The court convicted Curbelo Aguilera of causing “minor injuries” in the incident, according to Cuban local media.
Curbelo Aguilera has stated that he was prosecuted in retaliation for his reporting on anti-government protests in the eastern town of Caimanera in 2023.
In a separate incident, the local music news outlet, Magazine AMPM, announced in an online statement that it was suspending publication and taking “an indefinite pause” due to Cuban counterintelligence agencies “increasing pressure and harassment” of its editor, Rafa Escalona. According to AMPM, Escalona was interrogated and threatened with legal action by Cuban state security agents over grant money recently awarded to the magazine.
In recent years, Cuba’s non-state journalists have come under intense pressure from the government, which does not legally recognize the rights of news outlets outside official state media. Cuban law prohibits news outlets from receiving foreign funding and journalists who receive foreign funding can be accused of an act of “subversion.”
A Cuban government representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment about either case.
Cuba sentences 22-year-old mother to 15 years in prison for publishing videos of protests
Mayelín Rodríguez Prado was arrested after uploading images to Facebook of a small demonstration in Nuevitas in August 2022
At the age of 22, Mayelín Rodríguez Prado received the heaviest of the sentences the Cuban government handed down to a group of 13 people who demonstrated in August 2022 in the municipality of Nuevitas, in central Cuba. Prado, who is the mother of a little girl, will serve 15 years in prison for publishing the protests through the social network Facebook.
Prado recorded the moment in which Cuban police beat three girls during the demonstration, as well as other repressive actions against protestors. The young woman, whose daughter at the time was less than a year old, was detained at her home after the protest and held in solitary confinement at a State Security facility.
“Exemplary sentences”
Cuban activist Marcel Valdés reported on social media that Fray Claro Valladares, 22, another of the 13 people arrested for the Nuevitas protest, “tried to hang himself” in the Cerámica prison in Camagüey province after learning of his 10-year sentence.
These sentences are “designed to be exemplary” amid the discontent caused by the socioeconomic situation in Cuba, according to Yaxys Cires, director of strategies of the OCDH. “These sentences are part of a highly repressive context in which other events have also occurred: the detention of journalist José Luis Tan on April 26; the arbitrary detention for several hours of intellectual Alina Bárbara López Hernández, who was also beaten; and the recent reminder on a Cuban television program that there are crimes, such as sedition, which could carry the death penalty. These are just some examples.”
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols also criticized the convictions. ” The harsh sentencing this week of up to 15 years in prison for Cubans who peacefully assembled in Nuevitas in 2022 is outrageous,” he said on X. “The Cuban government’s continued repression of Cubans striving to fulfill their basic rights and needs is unconscionable.”
There are other cases of people the Cuban government has sentenced for expressing themselves publicly on social networks. Among the July 2021 protesters, Yoan de la Cruz, who broadcast the first demonstration from San Antonio de los Baños live via Facebook, was imprisoned for 10 months and sentenced to five years of correctional labor without internment.
With the rise of the internet in recent years on the island, giving more and more Cubans access to social networks, and the increase in demonstrations of popular discontent, the government has implemented tools that restrict freedom of expression online and punish by law any publication considered a threat. Decree Law 370, approved in 2019, criminalizes the disclosure on social networks of “information contrary to the public interest, morals, good customs and the integrity of persons.” Likewise, Decree Law 35 of 2021 legislates the restriction of the use of information “through telecommunication/ICT infrastructures, platforms or services, of content that threatens the constitutional, social, and economic precepts of the State.”
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