MIAMI, United States. — The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) demanded that the Cuban regime immediately release and drop the charges against independent journalist Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, imprisoned for more than a year and whose trial it was concluded for sentencing on June 28.
non-governmental organization remembered that the oral hearing against the journalist, who was facing a prosecutor’s request for six years in prison for the crimes of contempt and dissemination of enemy propaganda, was held last Wednesday behind closed doors at the Municipal Court of Marianao (Havana).
“After more than a year in preventive detention, Cuban journalist Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca is being forced to go through a false trial that could sentence him to years in prison simply for reporting,” said the coordinator of the Latin America and the Caribbean program. CPJ’s Natalie Southwick.
“The Cuban authorities must release Valle immediately and stop treating independent journalists like criminals,” the communicator said.
Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca has been in preventive detention since June 15, 2021, when he was arrested after he was subpoenaed by police to allegedly close a 2020 contempt investigation.
The day before his arrest, the reporter had reported on pro-democracy flyers dropped from a building in Havana for his Deliberate YouTube channel, a fact documented at the time by CPJ.
During his time in prison, Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca has suffered multiple health problems, including kidney problems derived from the hunger strike he has carried out.
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