Cuba: The Crime of “Stimulating Adverse Opinions”
Prosecutor’s Office seeks 9-years in prison
Authorities link the eight defendants to the Cuba Primero group and cite as evidence “the possession of materials related to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”
HAVANA TIMES – Eight people from Las Tunas province could face up to nine years in prison for the crime of “propaganda against the constitutional order.” According to a report published Monday by the legal advice center Cubalex, the defendants have been held in pretrial detention since March and April 2024 awaiting trial for expressing political opinions on social media.
In its report, the NGO noted that it had access to the provisional conclusions presented by the Prosecutor’s Office before the State Security Crimes Chamber of the Provincial Court of Santiago de Cuba, in a document dated July 21, 2025 and signed by prosecutor Iany Fernández Jomarrón.
The indictment mentions Javier Reyes Peña, for whom the prosecution is requesting nine years in prison, as well as Adisbel Mendoza Barroso (eight), Guillermo Carralero López (eight), Carlos Manuel Santiesteban Saavedra (seven), Carlos Alberto McDonald Ennis (seven) – who is living with a serious health condition that has deteriorated in prison, without receiving adequate medical attention – Enrique González Infante (seven), Pedro Carlos Camacho Ochoa (seven) and Maikel Hill Ramírez (six).
Authorities link them to the Cuba Primero movement, a group considered by the regime as “terrorist” and “criminal,” based in the United States, “which organizes, finances, provides means and carries out actions against the security of the Cuban State.”
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the accusations are based on “interaction on social networks, especially Facebook, the recording and publication of videos in which the accused persons expressed political positions, the dissemination of critical content and the exchange with other users inside and outside the country, and the possession of printed materials and pamphlets, including materials related to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, these actions were presented as aimed at “stimulating adverse opinions” and generating dissent regarding the Cuban political system, without any mention of violent acts or calls to violence in the charges. Furthermore, the document includes assessments of the defendants’ “moral and social conduct,” such as maintaining behavior “at odds with the revolutionary process,” elements that—Cubalex emphasized—reinforce the “ideological, stigmatizing, and discriminatory nature of the charges.”
Cubalex warned that in the case, psychiatric evaluations, criminal records, and social assessments have been used “as elements of accusatory reinforcement, which can aggravate the situation of people in vulnerable contexts.”
Regarding the case of Carlos Alberto McDonald Ennis, due to his health condition (he suffers from hypertension, diabetes, pancreatitis, heart disease, and a malignant tumor in his nasal cavity), the NGO reported that his family has exhausted all available legal resources, including several habeas corpus petitions and requests to modify the precautionary measure, without receiving an effective response. This, it added, is compounded by “the absence of basic procedural guarantees,” such as the fact that the charges against him have not been clearly defined, he has not been notified of the evidence against him, and the legal time limit for the criminal proceedings has been unjustifiably exceeded, without any formal request or duly substantiated extensions.
Cubalex denounced that this case exemplifies the use of the penal system in Cuba “as a tool of political repression” and demanded the release of “all people criminalized for peacefully exercising their rights in Cuba.”
In November alone, according to the latest report from the same organization, 165 repressive incidents were recorded across all provinces of the country, in which at least 138 people were victims of some type of human rights violation that month. In many cases, these acts occurred after various spontaneous protests motivated by power outages, water shortages, the collapse of the healthcare system, and state neglect following Hurricane Melissa and the current chikungunya and dengue epidemic affecting the country.
Translated by Translating Cuba.