LIMA, Peru – The Ministry of the Interior (MININT) of the Cuban regime issued an informative note this Friday in which he minimizes the events related to the riot at the Canaleta prison, in Ciego de Ávila, on February 18 and 19.
According to the official organ, in the early hours of Thursday “an incident occurred that altered order in the Penitentiary Establishment” and thanks to the actions of the authorities “order was restored with rationality and determination.”
The statement indicates that the events occurred when two individuals punished for the crimes of “robbery with force, theft and sacrifice of large livestock, evasion of detainees and illegal possession of a knife, as well as a series of internal indisciplines, indiscriminately, together with other inmates with the same characteristics who joined in, committed a serious violation of the penitentiary regulations.”
The brief official note does not specify the causes and development of the “incident”, nor did it clarify whether there were people injured or dead. Instead, he limited himself to concluding that “events like these violate the tranquility of the penitentiary system and will receive the rigor of socialist legality for the benefit of collective security.”
In parallel, activists’ complaintsjournalists and independent organizations inside and outside Cuba report an environment of violence and repression inside the prison that was reflected through videos, audios and images. The NGO Prisoners Defenders even reported up to seven possible deaths, a figure that has not yet been verified amid the information opacity and lack of institutional transparency on the Island.
For its part, the project represorescubanos.com, of the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, added to its list of repressors Major Noel Morales López, head of the Canaleta provincial prison, Ciego de Avila, and responsible for the brutality unleashed against the inmates on February 18 and 19, 2026.
As the platform recalled, the Canaleta prison population, including common and political prisoners, rioted with shouts of “Homeland and life”, “Freedom” and “Long live Trump, down with Díaz-Canel” after one of the inmates, almost a child, said he was hungry and received a beating in response. The young man later appeared hanged or tried to, and when word spread, Detachment 2, of 147 men, began the revolt against the mistreatment, the beatings and the lack of food and medicine.
The record highlights that at dawn on the 19th, the prison police, firefighters, the special Black Wasp troops of the FAR (from Camagüey and Sancti Spíritus), and the Black Berets of the MININT Special Brigade intervened. They repressed with rubber bullets, pepper spray, punches and kicks.
“Several inmates were dragged, transported in ambulances and in political police vehicles. Others were taken to isolation areas to continue the beatings. The complainant Yonimiler Del Río Polo reported that Major Morales López could be seen in the middle of the riot in Canaleta stamping on the face of an inmate known as Iván El Gordo,” the repressor’s profile states.
