Havana/The journalist’s trial and collaborator of 14ymedio José Gabriel Barrenechea, arrested for demonstrating against the blackouts in the municipality of Crossroads In November 2024 and accused of public disorders, it already has a date and time. It will take place on September 24 at 9:00 am, a family source informed this media.
On June 25, the Prosecutor’s Office delivered to the Provincial Court of Villa Clara a petition for penalty of Six years in prison For the communicator. The document, to which this newspaper had access, details that the “crime” of Barrenechea – who initially sought to accuse of sedition – during the peaceful manifestations, after 48 hours without electric current at the crossroads, was to shout “put the current, we want the current”, to chorus along with other protesters, and urge “the voice that the people present did not withdraw.
The journalist was accused of showing “total disaffection for the revolutionary process and his top leader”
The document adds that the journalist “shows total disaffection for the revolutionary process and its top leader.” He also points out that he is a citizen without a criminal record, but that “relates to people of bad morality and social behavior, and has no recognized labor link.”
In the request of the prosecutor Ayrebi Miranda also requested nine years for Yandri Torres Quintana and Rafael Javier Camacho Herrera, five for Rodel Barbaro Rodríguez Espinosa and Marcos Daniel Díaz Rodríguez, and four for Yuniesky Lorences Domínguez, all for having participated in the protests with dozens of neighbors of the municipality.
Relatives of Barrenechea have pointed out that “justice is behaving as a revenge tool for their work as an independent journalist and for their political opinions.” At the beginning of June, the Provincial Court of Villa Clara rejected a request for freedom in favor of the journalist. His lawyer presented a habeas corpusbut the court rejected it. “They said that it does not apply because the detention and the confinement period is in the normal parameters, so we are in them, he is still imprisoned and the family is tied from hands,” he said at that time 14ymedio A family source that requested anonymity.
During these last 10 months, Barrenechea has been imprisoned at the La Penitencia Center, in Santa Clara
During these last 10 months, Barrenechea has been imprisoned in the La Penitentiary Center, in Santa Clara. The place is “known for its extreme overcrowding conditions and to house prisoners of all kinds,” according to the Complaints Center of the Foundation for Pan American Democracy. His stay there has represented “a serious risk to his life,” said the entity in a statement days after the detention of the communicator.
The case was also retaken by Prisoners Defenders. At the time, he included it in some of his reports, where he stressed that he had no judicial guardianship and accused that he had been pursued for years by state security.
In prison, the communicator suffered the death of his motherZoila Esther Chávez, who depended on him, and was only allowed to attend his funeral for an hour and a half. The woman – who suffered a bladder cancer in a metastatic state – had requested on different occasions to see her son and even recorded a video in which she requested, on the edge of crying, that they would allow her to see him for the last time: “What has he done to have it locked me, so that they have, to him, in this Calvary, in this terror that I carry inside my heart?
