Havana/Yadiel Hernández Hernández’s Facebook profile, known as Kakashionly returns a message to those who visit it: “There are no available publications.” The account content has been deleted after the arrest, on January 24, of the young man who, at the time of his arrest, investigated for 14ymedio Drug trafficking in the pre -university of the city of Matanzas.
Kakashi, 33, designer, graduated in theological studies and independent reporter, is held in the southern team, a prison where overcrowding and complaints of abuse against inmates are constant. To that prison came after being arrested almost three months ago and having spent several weeks under interrogation, at the hands of state security. About Hernández now weighs an accusation for the alleged crime of “propaganda against the constitutional order.”
According to the Criminal Code currently, crimes against constitutional order include sanctions such as deprivation of liberty, life imprisonment and even the death penalty, for those who rise in arms with the aim of changing the Constitution or preventing the functioning of the authorities. Kakashi, on the contrary, only investigated the extension of the drug scourge among Matancos adolescents, a journalistic work that would help save lives.
All attempts in this newspaper to contact Hernández’s family have been unsuccessful
At the end of last January, communication between our writing and Hernández was cut. Initially, his silence was attributed to the long electric cuts that whipped the island in those days and also generated frequent falls in the Internet connection. However, a few weeks later, a source close to Kakashi’s family confirmed his arrest. “They stopped and took him,” he added.
All attempts in this newspaper to contact Hernández’s family, to have details about his current situation and the date of the trial against him, have been unsuccessful. From the inside of the southern team, Hernández’s possibilities to communicate with the outside are limited and at this time the independent journalist has not been able to contact legal advisory organizations or media.
“He was arrested for many days in Versailles [sede del centro de operaciones de la Seguridad del Estado en Matanzas]”, details the source.” He was taken after the incident that occurred with an alleged gas escape in the pre -university, “he adds, referring to an accident at the José Luis Dubrocq Higher Education Center, when he began to feel a strong smellseveral students presented nausea and discomfort, even some had to be hospitalized.
Although the official version of the incident held a student who sprayed pepper gas on a teacher’s motorcycle and caused the inhalation of the substance, what happened fed rumors about drug use in the pre -university and the sale of substances of that type inside the school. “The police charged with people who could report what had really happened and that same January 24 took Kakashi, who had been investigating that traffic network for some time.”
Everything indicates that the best way to help you at this time is to publish what happened
After hearing those details, this newspaper has weighed whether a public complaint could worsen the situation or help to make visible the case of the reporter. Finally, after listening to the opinion of several friends of the young man, everything indicates that the best way to help him at this time is to publish about what happened so that the case of Hernández arrives at the international organizations that ensure the protection of journalists and for the freedom of the press.
“He has always been a very critical person with everything bad he sees, someone with a lot of civic awareness,” says a Kakashi friend who fears that “he will stay for long years in jail, because they will make him pay his attitude, his rebellion and his ability to uncover a whole plot that is affecting young people, almost children, that pre -university and other parts of the city of Matanzas.”
Repression against independent reporters has been a constant in recent decades in Cuba, but has been intensified after popular protests of July 11, 2021, when the media not controlled by the Communist Party reported the size and desire for political change that marked the demonstrations. The new Social Communication Law of Cuba, which entered into force on October 4, has constituted a twist in censorship. Journalists working outside the official media denounce an increase in threats and pressures.
Another collaborator of ’14ymedio’, José Gabriel Barrenechea, has been in prison for five months
Together with this legislation, the Criminal Code and Decree Law 370, they make up a tenza that closes on the press. The Social Communication Law only recognizes the media linked to the ruling party and marginalizes all independent platforms, many of them, in addition, blocked on national servers. The arrest of reporters, the confiscation of their technological devices and prison sentences are also part of the repressive scheme against the free movement of information.
Another collaborator of 14ymedioJosé Gabriel Barrenechea, has been in prison for five months, waiting for trial, for participating in the protests of November 8 at the crossroads, Villa Clara. A few weeks ago, the journalist sent A blunt message. “No one can ask me to feel something positive for a political system, some institutions and a leading picture that are the ultimate responsible for this hell to which my life has been reduced,” he told the independent newspaper Cubanet From the prison the slope.
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists, the Inter -American Press Society (SIP), Article 19, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch and other organizations in human rights defense have repeatedly warned about the use of the law to limit freedom of expression and access to information in Cuba.
