The independent journalist remains isolated and without formal explanation for his transfer, in another episode of repression against critical voices in Cuba.
MADRID, Spain.- The independent journalist Ángel Cuza Alfonso was transferred this Sunday to the Guanajay prison, after the authorities stated that his name appeared on an alleged list of inmates who intended to “plant themselves” in the Combinado del Este, denounced the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (ICLEP).
In a telephone conversation with Yunia Figueredo, director of the ICLEP media Havana DawnCuza denied having knowledge of that list and assured that he is in an isolation cell, without having been offered a formal explanation about the reasons for his transfer.
The ICLEP noted that this case highlights arbitrary practices within the Cuban prison system, particularly when it comes to political prisoners, activists or independent journalists.
The organization warned that keeping a person isolated without a transparent process or verifiable grounds constitutes a violation of prison and human rights, including protection against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The case of Ángel Cuza is part of a series of episodes of repression and harassment suffered by the journalist in recent years. Last July, Cuza was arrested again, just two months after being released from prison. As told to CubaNet his ex-partner and mother of his daughter, Ana Castillo, the arrest was part of a repressive routine around July 26, an emblematic date for the Cuban regime.
According to Castillo’s testimony, Cuza was intercepted by State Security agents when he was preparing to pay a visit to Havana. During the search, the agents found an old bullet that he had with him as a souvenir, which was later used as a pretext to arrest him. “He had that bullet for years,” Castillo explained.
Although the journalist does not have any weapons, his arrest coincided with the threats he had received upon his release. “If you do anything, you will return to the same bed you left here,” Officer Pablo, second head of Section 21 of State Security, warned him on the day of his release from Combinado del Este.
At the beginning of August, Cuza denounced from that same prison that the authorities fabricated charges against him based on false evidence, in a new episode of what human rights defenders describe as political instrumentalization of the penal system.
In a phone call sent to CubaNet, the journalist stated: “A complaint is being made against me because they say that firearms and explosives were seized from me, but at no time was there any seizure of weapons, only [la de] a 38 caliber bullet, and I had that for religious purposes.” As he explained, the projectile had been in his possession for more than 17 years and had no criminal purpose.
Cuza also claimed to have been a victim of procedural irregularities. “They committed several frauds with me,” he denounced, alluding to possible manipulations in transfer or detention documents.
In a handwritten letter sent from prison, addressed to his “brothers and sisters of struggle,” he reaffirmed his determination to continue his political activism: “Know that my body and my soul, even though I am locked up, will always be in every protest you make.”
The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), based in Madrid, described his detention as arbitrary and without legal basis. In an official statement, the agency noted that “the mere possession of an inert object, without a context of threat or use, cannot be criminalized.”
The OCDH also warned that Cuza’s criminal prosecution violates the principle of typicality of Cuban criminal law, by applying an extensive and arbitrary interpretation of the Penal Code (Law No. 151/2022).
Ángel Cuza Alfonso has been the subject of systematic harassment by the Cuban regime. In November 2023, he was sentenced to one year and six months in prison for “public disorder” and released in May of this year. In 2021, he had already served eight months in prison for participating in a peaceful protest on Obispo Street, in support of the San Isidro Movement and the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.
Cuza currently remains in pretrial detention, with no formal trial date announced.
