Cuba

María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez is a Cuban poet and activist. On March 10, 2022, she was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of ‘public disorder,’ ‘assault’, ‘instigation to commit a crime’, ‘contempt,’ and ‘resistance’.

Bestowing this year’s IPFA on Jiménez recognizes that Cuba remains one of the most challenging environments in the Americas for the press.

The report “Prison or Exile: Cuba’s Systematic Repression of July 2021 Demonstrators,” documents a wide range of human rights violations committed in the context of the protests, including arbitrary detention, abuse-ridden prosecutions, and torture.

To mark the one-year anniversary of the J11 protests in Cuba, Freedom House interviews Alessandra Pinna, director of programs for the Latin America and Caribbean region, to discuss what Cubans are doing to secure a freer future and how the international community can help.

CPJ called on authorities to refrain from sentencing freelance journalist Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca to prison, to drop all charges against him, and to release the journalist, who has been held for more than a year in pretrial detention.

Over a dozen human and civil rights organizations have called for the immediate release of Cuban artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel “Osorbo” Pérez, who stood trial on May 30 and 31 on trumped-up charges and have been detained since the summer of 2021.

“Maykel Castillo Pérez and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara are being prosecuted for exercising their human right to criticize their own government” – HRW.

CPJ is alarmed by the passage of Cuba’s new penal code, which further criminalises the work of independent journalists on the island by banning foreign funding and puts their existence and sustainability at dire risk.

“A review of the charges against both artists makes it clear that they are being targeted for their peaceful exercise of their right to free expression.”

“Abel Lescay is a brave and talented musician who should never have been in jail in the first place (…) His sentencing is a very worrisome development in the Cuban government’s relentless crackdown on artistic expression…”

A proposed amendment to the penal code is risking criminalizing funding for independent journalists and media organizations.

Salvadoran authorities should continue providing support to Cuban journalists Esteban Rodríguez and Héctor Luis Valdés, and Cuban authorities should cease forcing journalists into exile.

“We are extremely concerned by the brutal assault on journalist Mabel Páez, and the suspicious circumstances surrounding it,” said CPJ. “It is imperative that Cuban authorities thoroughly and transparently investigate this violent attack and bring those responsible to justice.”

The work being done by these collective groups represents a beacon of hope for Cuba, and the entire region – IACHR

In the two months since historic mass demonstrations swept through Cuba on July 11, drawing national and international attention to the island’s deteriorating sociopolitical conditions, there have been at least 39 documented arrests of artists related to the protests, four of whom were subjected to trial without a jury.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the enactment of new telecommunications regulations in Cuba that will further censor information on the island, and called for their immediate repeal.