AREQUIPA, Peru – The journalist from CubaNet Enrique Díaz Rodríguez is stranded with his family at the Jorge Chávez airport in the city of Lima, in Peru. This, after the Nicaraguan authorities denied his entry to that country.
Díaz Rodríguez, who in recent years has suffered harassment and repression from the Castro dictatorship, says that he escaped from Cuba this Friday on a LATAM airline flight to begin the journey to the United States.
In recent months harassment The Cuban State Security (SE) has also involved his 18-year-old son, especially after the young man’s refusal to enter military service.
“He has always said that he was not going to serve under a regime that has mistreated his father and his family. I understood it perfectly and supported it. Then Security gave me the option of facing the consequences or leaving the country,” Díaz Rodríguez told this newspaper.
Upon arriving at Havana’s international airport, the reporter assures that there were no problems with his departure. In fact, he emphasizes, SE agents present there ensured that the entire process was expeditious.
“When I get here to Peru, I’m going to check with Avianca For the other stopover in El Salvador, airline officials inform me that Nicaragua will not receive me. Neither to me nor to those who are with me,” highlights the journalist, stranded with his wife (Lismeirys Quintana Avila), children (Melanie Ly Díaz Quintana and Pedro Enrique Díaz Quintana), son-in-law (Yoxiet Dariel Rizo Almas) and a grandson ( Ivan Daniel Rizo Díaz) just three years old.
The events have resulted in what Díaz Rodríguez describes as “immigration limbo”, since he cannot return to the Island and the airlines ignore his situation.
The Cuban dictatorship in complicity with its allies in the region has led to similar cases in the past. In 2022, journalists from the independent media Cuba DNA and members of the San Isidro MovementHector Luis Valdés Cocho and Esteban Rodríguez, also they were stranded in El Salvador.
The two were expelled to Nicaragua, a place that would be a temporary refuge before requesting asylum in another country. However, Daniel Ortega’s regime did not admit them either.
Regime repression against Enrique Díaz Rodríguez
Since 2018, the abuses and violations of the Cuban regime against Enrique Díaz Rodríguez have been reported in different media. After the massive protests of July 11 and 12, 2021 in Cuba, the siege has increased exponentially.
In 2023, an SE officer warned the journalist that he would not be able to go out on March 26, day set by the regime to hold legislative “elections.”
“They were very clear in their threatening message, they said that they were not going to allow any person from the opposition, from the people or independent journalists to be on the streets demonstrating against the elections. Specifically, they warned me that if I did [salir a la calle] “I had to face the consequences, because they would send me to prison,” the reporter denounced at the time.
In November 2020, State Security also confiscated a small plot of land from Díaz Rodríguez that he cultivated for family consumption.
“State Security will always try to prevent my work as a reporter, but my message will always be the same: I will continue reporting, because my job is to inform and not to summon, but if I did the latter it is also my right as a person” , he sentenced.
