Letter sent to human rights organization on the case of Cuban independent journalist and human right defender Yeris Curbelo Aguilera
Dear colleague,
I am writing to express my concern for the life and well being of Yeris Curbelo Aguilera, a 39 year old independent journalist and resident of Guantánamo and his family. He is now serving an unjust two year prison sentence. He and his son have also been targeted with physical violence by regime agents. He is being targeted due to his work as a journalist, and human rights defender.
The Cuban journalist Yeris Curbelo Aguilera was sentenced to two years in prison yesterday following a two hour trial in the Niceto Pérez Municipal Court in the Province of Guantánamo with irregularities that fell short of international standards to restrict his work in support of press freedom in Cuba. He was immediately taken to the Guantánamo Combinado prison by State Security agents.
Both Yeris and his son on separate occasions were targets of violent assaults on June 18, 2024 and April 14, 2024 respectively by the same three young men. However, Yeris was also attacked by Adrián Fuentes Lafita who injured the reporter with a machete. The actual reason for the attacks and the prison sentence are due to his reporting on the May 2023 demonstrations in Caimanera, and Yeris speaking out against the situation of youth jailed for protesting socio-economic conditions and calling for freedom. and their families harassed for speaking up for their imprisoned loved ones.
His wife, Odalis Legrá Castellanos, made the following statement from the Island yesterday afternoon:
“Today, the trial against my husband Yeris Curbelo Aguilera was held, a rigged trial. In the middle of the trial, the defense attorney did not agree with the punishment that was being imposed on Yeris since Yeris had several injuries and certificates of the injuries that he had and in the trial nothing of that was mentioned, and yet they asked for two years of deprivation of liberty. When the members of the court stood up to deliberate, a State Security agent entered where they were deliberating and when they left, they came out with the same punishment that the prosecution had asked for, leaving one of the aggressors who was also being tried acquitted,” she said from Guantanamo and added that the aggressor who was brought to trial is Adrian Fuentes Laffita, and was acquitted, the other three aggressors were brought as witnesses against Curbelo Aguilera.
Independent journalist and human rights defender Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, director of Palenque Visión agency and Coordinator of the Eastern Democratic Alliance called for international solidarity.
“Adrian Fuentes Laffita was the one who attacked Yeris with a machete, causing him injury. It is an extremely immoral and arbitrary sentence, as is the situation that Yeris and his family are in. It is important to remember that Yeris Curbelo Aguilera has been an outstanding activist, with notable leadership in his community, the town of Caimanera, which is complicated by the presence of the Guantanamo Naval Base, as well as security forces and measures implemented by the Cuban regime. Yeris has been imprisoned for political reasons multiple times, and his son has been psychologically harmed and has had to seek professional help. Following the May 2023 demonstrations in Caimanera, Yeris has spoken out against the situation of the imprisoned young people and their families. I urge the international community, parliamentarians, and organizations that watch over freedom of the press to speak out and condemn the Havana regime for arbitrarily imprisoning the independent journalist Yeris Curbelo Aguilera.”
I am writing to urge you to do everything possible to obtain his release, and call attention to extrajudicial violence carried out against him, and a member of his family.
According to the independent journalist’s summary of the facts, his 16-year-old son Jessy James Curbelo Garrido was attacked in the early hours of April 14 this year by 21-year-olds Miguel Mosqueda, Douglas Ismark Mazar Gongora, and Mariano Reyes, who beat him with kicks, causing a sprain in his right arm, facial injuries, and multiple convulsions as a result of the blows to the head. The young man was sent to the Pedro Agustín Pérez Pediatric Hospital in Guantánamo.
The attackers escaped unscathed from the incident, and officials said they had been penalized, despite the lack of evidence.Following these incidents, on June 16 of this year, Yeris Curbelo Aguilera was attacked in the same location where his son was attacked months before, by the same persons, as well as Adrián Fuentes Lafita, aka Toto, 41.
”They all attacked me without even saying a word, hitting me all over my body. They punched me, hurled stones at me, and Adrián Fuentes Lafita, alias Toto, assaulted me with a machete that he always keeps in his yellow Moskovish automobile, leaving two wounds on my right hand that needed to be sewn up. State Security ordered patrolmen to take me alone to the police station in Guantánamo, better known as Parque 24, and they released me on bail on June 18, 2024, accusing me of minor injuries. This is crazy, and further proof that State Security is fabricating a common crime against me and imprisoning me due to my political activism in the ranks of the resistance and independent journalism. How is it possible that these people brutally attack one of my children and me, injuring us, and then I am detained and charged with minor injuries? “The actions of State Security against me for simply advocating for a free and democratic Cuba are extremely unfair, cruel, and vandalistic,” stated Yeris Curbelo Aguilera.
Let us recall that Yeris Curbelo was the journalist who condemned the case against the young people who protested in Caimanera and were jailed in July; he is also known in his neighborhood for helping people and denouncing the everyday abuses perpetrated against Cubans.
