A Free Hand for Repression in Cuba
The independent press raises the alarm over the arbitrary detention of two journalists by Cuban State Security.
HAVANA TIMES – Zoila Chavez is 84 years old and lives in a wooden house in Encrucijada, a town in the Cuban province of Villa Clara. She has circulatory problems, legs with sores and walks with difficulty. She was cared for by her son, Jose Gabriel Barrenechea. But the regime’s police arrested him in November and Zoila has been by herself for five months.
A physicist by training, a writer by vocation, Barrenechea published his reflections in independent media and was in the crosshairs of the regime. He was taken away for protesting, along with his neighbors, the endless blackouts that exacerbate the hardships of Cubans. It was a peaceful march, like so many others that took place throughout the country. But Miguel Díaz-Canel has already said that he will not tolerate anyone disturbing “the tranquility of the citizenry.”
In La Pendiente prison, Barrenechea is awaiting trial for “propaganda against the constitutional order,” which can carry the death penalty.
Meanwhile, Zoila heats water on a charcoal stove, walks holding onto the walls and fantasizes about an impossible trip to the prison, to ask for her son back. “He’s the only thing I have” she relates in a video released by the Cubanet website. It is a heartbreaking monologue, which flows between reflections, prayers and a sad song. “Every night I ask God and the Virgin to let me wake up. I just want to see Gabriel walk through the door.”
Not far from there, Yadiel Hernandez, 33, a designer, a graduate in theological studies and independent reporter, is in pretrial detention in the fearsome Combinado del Sur prison. He had been missing since his arrest in January, when he was investigating drug trafficking in a school in Matanzas for the independent digital newspaper 14ymedio. The regime is not so much concerned about the growing consumption of narcotics on the island as it is about the fact that it is talked about. It is only known that he was interrogated for weeks by State Security and that he will be tried for the same crime as Barrenechea.
Repression does not subside an inch in Cuba, where, since 2024, an unusual number of prisoners have been dying. The same goes for Venezuela and Nicaragua. We must remember this, now that geopolitical shocks have taken these countries off the radar. It is essential to give a voice to those who fight for them.
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Translated by: Hombre de Paz for Translating Cuba.