Cuza was arrested just 24 hours after being released from prison.
MIAMI, United States. – State Security agents detained the independent Cuban reporter Ángel Cuza Alfonso this Tuesday in a police unit in the Playa municipality, in Havana, about 24 hours after he was released from the Guanajay prison, Artemisa, as he told CubaNet the mother of his daughter, Ana Castillo.
The woman specified CubaNet that both had attended a summons set for 1:00 in the afternoon this Tuesday in the Third and 110 Unit of the Playa municipality. Likewise, he said that, upon arriving, “a State Security officer, the same one who threatened him this Monday at his house, came out,” asked Cuza for his identification card and asked him to accompany him.
According to Castillo, she was told that she could not enter and had to remain outside. Shortly after, he told him that he could go home. When he asked why, he said they told him “simply that he stayed there in the unit, without any explanation and without anything.”
The arrest occurs one day after Cuza Alfonso was released from Guanajay prisonalthough he continued to be under criminal proceedings and subject to police control, according to an audio sent by the journalist himself to this newsroom. In that material, Cuza explained: “They released me yesterday [lunes 26 de enero] from the Guanajay prison, but supposedly I have an open process for the ‘crime’ of carrying explosives due to a bullet casing.”
The activist pointed out that State Security agents had told him that he should appear this Tuesday at the Playa police unit where he was finally detained again, to sign a document as part of the procedure against him. “Yesterday the repressors told me that I have to show up today, Tuesday, at one in the afternoon at the Third and 110 unit in Playa, as proof that I have to sign a form until the day of the trial or I don’t know, I have to see what the process is going to be like,” he added then, according to the previous CubaNet report.
In that same audio, Cuza denounced that “not even 24 hours had passed since his release” and they had already begun to “repress[lo]He also explained that they threatened him that “if he did anything” they would “send him to Matanzas as a prisoner.”
Cuza Alfonso has been subject to systematic harassment by the regime. In November 2023, he was sentenced to one year and six months in prison for “public disorder,” and was 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.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) considers that the current criminal proceedings against Cuza “constitute a flagrant violation of his human rights and a worrying example of the political instrumentalization of the penal system in Cuba.”
The whereabouts of the writer Ángel Santiesteban Prats is unknown
The writer Ángel Santiesteban Prats was also arrested this Tuesday in Havana, according to statements sent to CubaNet by journalist Camila Acosta, his partner, who stated that patrol No. 627 C of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) took him away after State Security agents intercepted him when he was trying to leave his home.
According to Acosta, Santiesteban left in the morning on his motorcycle to carry out “some Masonic procedures,” after which “a State Security officer fell behind him.” At that moment, according to the journalist, the agent allowed her to return to the house. “He returned to store the motorcycle, went up to leave his personal belongings, he only took the license and some money and went down,” he explained.
Acosta assured that, through security cameras, he observed movements of agents in the vicinity before the police car arrived. “A State Security motorcycle stopped at the corner and then another one approached. Apparently they were waiting for the patrol to come,” he said.
Minutes later, he added, neighbors and people in the area confirmed the number of the vehicle that took him.
The journalist maintained that, before the arrest, Santiesteban Prats managed to speak with a State Security official, who did not give him a concrete explanation. “According to what Ángel told me, when he spoke with the State Security officer before, he did not give him justification. Supposedly it was because he was under an investigative process for something Masonic, but they have not given him a formal accusation,” he stated. He also assured that, as far as he knows, “there is no court order that says he cannot leave the house.”
Acosta linked the arrest to the climate of police operations in Havana on the day of the Torch March, scheduled for the night of January 27. “It is very likely that this is one due to the Torch March that is going to be tonight. We live very close to the University of Havana,” he declared.
The journalist also mentioned, as another possible cause, a meeting scheduled for this Wednesday, related to activities of the US diplomatic mission in Havana.
Until the moment of his statements to CubaNetAcosta said he did not know the writer’s whereabouts and added that he considered it possible that he would be transferred to a police unit for interrogation and held for several hours.
