Jorge Bello Domínguez
José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez
Henry Constantín
Independent journalist Yeris Curbelo Aguilera—who was released from prison on May 24, 2026 after serving an arbitrary two-year prison sentence—was attacked with machetes and stones during an “act of repudiation” orchestrated by State Security agents and the same criminals who, after attacking him in 2024, had landed him in prison.
“I was released from prison on May 24 of this year; I have now fully served the sentence for which I was unjustly convicted—for the entire trial was a sham designed to get me off the streets; the dictatorship wanted to get me off the streets. On the very day I regained my freedom upon completing my sentence—Sunday, May 24—my family and I, here at my home, fell victim to a vandalous act of repudiation. We were attacked with stones and machetes, sustaining injuries at the hands of these individuals who vilely assaulted our home and attacked us personally. The objective is to intimidate people—to demonstrate that they [the regime] still maintain a certain degree of control over those of us who oppose the totalitarian Castroist regime,” stated Yeris Curbelo in a video.
The dissident and independent journalist further denounced the fact that the very same criminals who had attacked him in 2024 were the ones who carried out this act of repudiation, hurling stones, brandishing machetes, and issuing threats. The ringleader of these criminals is Adrián Fuentes Laffita, who issued death threats against him.
“I remain steadfast in the struggle, standing firm in my commitment to a democratic transition in Cuba. It is vital that the world be made aware of this act of vandalism, for it is a profound injustice—an act of aggression and assault against individuals simply for desiring freedom for Cuba,” affirmed Curbelo Aguilera from Caimanera, Guantánamo.
Gustavo Gutierrez Sanchez, architect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Henry Constantín Enters Kilo 7 Prison in a Process Marked by Lack of Information
14ymedio, Madrid, September 25, 2026 – Independent journalist Henry Constantín, director of La Hora de Cuba and vice president of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) in the region, entered Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey this Thursday. The information, confirmed by him personally in a call to his partner, journalist Alejandra García, contradicts the measure issued during the investigation, which indicated that he would be transferred to Cerámica prison, in the same province.
The alert began Thursday morning, when the journalist’s lawyer reported that Constantín had been transferred from Villa María Luisa, the State Security operations and interrogation headquarters in the Garrido neighborhood of Camagüey, without the family’s knowledge. The news spread on the assumption that the journalist had been taken to the place stated in the official record.
Constantín, who was subject to a precautionary measure of preventive detention amid an investigation for “disobedience,” had told those close to him last Tuesday that there were rumors that he would be transferred. However, in the end, it was other prisoners who left the facility. On Wednesday, when his family went to visit him, they received no notice of the transfer, which ultimately took place unexpectedly on Thursday.
La Hora de Cuba has denounced the accumulation of illegalities, since the lack of news was followed by false information, given that the precautionary measure indicated that the preventive detention was to be served in Cerámica. Added to all this is the postponement of the habeas corpus hearing filed Monday, which was supposed to take place this Friday.
The Provincial Popular Court, where Constantín’s family went to inquire about the situation, indicated that although the hearing was scheduled for September 25, “due to work changes” in the country, “it is perhaps postponed until Monday,” although, the publication adds, “most likely it will be next Tuesday the 29th.”
The family has denounced a violation of the Criminal Procedure Law, which establishes that the court has 72 hours from the time it admits the habeas corpus to hold the hearing. “A ruling cannot contradict what the procedural law says; that violates the law of a legal process of the hierarchy,” said law graduate Luis Orlando Bermúdez.
However, the subsequent article specifies that this must be complied with “unless there are justified causes that prevent it,” which would allow for a legal loophole on which to rely. Bermúdez, in any case, considers that the cause is not justified. “I think that if there is a habeas corpus there should be a judge, during the rotation due to the change of work. It cannot be that my procedural guarantees are violated because you have a change of work; that is crazy. You cannot arrange for there to be a change of work on Friday when there is a labor code that says Friday is a work day,” he maintains.
Henry Constantín is accused of a crime of disobedience for failing to appear for a summons issued for last September 9 at the Directorate of Identification, Immigration and Foreigners, in the Vista Hermosa neighborhood. Shortly afterward, on the 16th, the journalist received another communication instructing him to appear at the Second Unit of the Revolutionary National Police, located on Carretera Central, where he was arrested, supposedly, for the events that occurred the previous week.
Since then, his lawyer has complained about the misinformation that obstructs his right to a defense, beginning with the lack of access to the case file, without which she cannot appeal any of the measures adopted.
Last Wednesday, during a visit of about 20 minutes, Constantín assured his partner that he is facing his current situation with determination. “I am calm and I remain firm,” he said.
Translated by Regina Anavy
Preventive Detention Ordered for Henry Constantín, Detained at State Security Headquarters in Camagüey
His defense filed a habeas corpus petition for the journalist, who has been detained for five days, and denounces the lack of access to the case file.
14ymedio, Madrid, September 22, 2026 – Independent journalist Henry Constantín, director of La Hora de Cuba and vice president of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) in the region, remains detained at Villa María Luisa, the State Security headquarters for operations and interrogations in Camagüey. According to the investigator in the case, preventive detention has already been ordered for him. His defense, which has denounced not having access to the case file, filed a habeas corpus petition this Monday to guarantee the reporter’s rights after he had been detained for five days.
Constantín’s lawyer went this Monday to Villa María Luisa, where she was able to speak with the investigator in the case, whom she identifies as Juan Pablo. He told her that preventive detention had already been approved and that the case file was with the Prosecutor’s Office. The lawyer went there and requested access to the documentation—as provided for by law—in order to learn the details of the charges Constantín is facing and provide him with a legitimate defense, including a possible appeal or legal challenge. However, she “found no officials available,” which prevented her from learning the accusation.
It is known only that Constantín is accused of an alleged offense of disobedience for failing to attend a summons issued for September 9 at the Identification, Immigration and Foreigners Directorate, in the Vista Hermosa neighborhood. Shortly afterward, on the 16th, the journalist received another communication instructing him to appear at the Second Unit of the Revolutionary National Police, located on the Carretera Central, where he was arrested, supposedly, for the events that occurred the previous week.
Constantín’s defense argues in the habeas corpus petition that the Criminal Procedure Law provides only for a “fine of up to one hundred installments” for failing to attend a summons without justified cause, while detention would be imposed in the event of failing to appear for a second summons. Since the journalist did appear on that occasion, the lawyer argues that the offense of disobedience with which he is charged is not valid. Nevertheless, the impossibility of viewing the case file leaves the lawyer in the dark.
“Administrative obstacles have been repeated during the five days he has remained detained,” La Hora de Cuba denounced when reporting what happened. “On September 17, after a criminal defense lawyer was hired, she sent a colleague to Villa María Luisa, in the Garrido neighborhood, at around 2:30 p.m. to inquire about Henry’s situation, but he was told that investigator Juan Pablo had already left because he lives in Nuevitas, a different municipality,” they stated.
The statement, posted on its Facebook page, highlights the words of IAPA President Pierre Manigault, who denounced days ago that this is “a new and serious episode of harassment against the independent press.” “The summonses, detentions, surveillance and house arrests against Constantín are part of a pattern of pressure aimed at obstructing his journalistic work,” Martha Ramos, chair of that organization’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information for Cuba, also said.
La Hora de Cuba has insisted on the importance of any judicial process being “transparent and without obstacles that block access to fundamental rights. The demand for the release of our director and an end to the persecution of those who practice independent journalism remains.”
This detention has already surpassed in length the longest detention the journalist had previously experienced in June 2025, when he spent four days, also at Villa María Luisa, after accompanying journalist Iris Mariño to a summons. On that occasion, he was accused of an offense of “contempt” over a publication about the actions of a State Security agent. The case was never brought to trial.
Translated by Regina Anavy
Cuba Helped Write the Human Rights Charter. Then the Castro Regime Buried the Authors.
An analysis of Cuba’s human rights record
Autocrats demonize the past of their countries, and prior leaders to justify their rule. The Castro brothers are not an exception. In the Cuban case, as time went on and the dictatorship worsened the history of Republican Cuba was increasingly demonized. Entire chapters of Cuban history were omitted, especially the pioneering international human rights legacy of the Cuban Republic.
To hold a meaningful evaluation of the current human rights situation in Cuba requires placing it into historic context.
Fidel Castro in a June 1986 interview in Havana with French journalist Patrice Barrat of Le Figaro Magazine distinguished “revolutionary liberty” (the kind he said Cuba practiced) from “bourgeois liberties” that originated in Europe, stating that the two concepts of freedom were different and that Cuba should not be judged by European standards. The 1987 documentary excerpted this part of the conversation and included it in the documentary Nobody Listened.
This ignores the active and early role Cuban diplomats and jurists played in the 1940s proposing the creation of a UN human rights body, an international declaration of human rights, and lobbying to place it on the agenda of the newly formed United Nations.
In February 1945, with World War Two still underway, at the Chapultapec Castle in Mexico City twenty Latin American countries and a large delegation from the United States participated in the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace. Dr. Gustavo Gutierrez attended the conference, and presented on behalf of Cuba “two detailed proposals for consideration, a Draft Declaration of the International Rights and Duties of the Individual and a “Draft Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Nations.”
On December 10, 2017 in the Miami Herald’s letters to the editor section, Pablo Pérez-Cisneros Barreto, the son of Guy Pérez-Cisneros y Bonnel, wrote of his family’s and Cuba’s legacy in drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
My late father believed that the declaration is the fruit of the great efforts of our civilization and human progress, a unique moment in which humanity came of age in its civic education; that it is also a source of inspiration for the formation of today’s citizens, and not cause for divisions among them. […] Cuba had the distinction of being the country that proposed the finished declaration be put up for its final UN vote on Dec. 10, 1948. Hard to believe now but Cuba was once a leader when it came to human rights.
Havana has memory holed the history of Cuba’s leading role in proposing, drafting, and lobbying for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights between 1945 and 1948. The names of Guy Perez Cisneros, and Gustavo Gutierrez Sanchez who broke new ground on the international human rights front were minimized for decades, and this part of their legacy erased in Cuba.
Prior to 1959, Cuba had problems – an authoritarian dictatorship imposed on March 10, 1952 that was unwanted – however it did have numerous newspapers, radio and television stations that challenged the Batista regime along with a vibrant civil society that struggled and protested against the dictator.
Now with the arrival of the Castro regime in 1959 promising the restoration of democracy and the rule of law – the exact opposite was done. Mass executions broadcast and filmed to terrorize the population. Conservative estimates of the number of Cubans killed under Castroism at 73,000.
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