Several Cuban communicators after bars on World Press Freedom Day

This May 3, when World Press Freedom Day is commemorated, several Cubans are in prison for their job of informing, trying to give birth to the reality of their communities, and raise their voice in demand of their rights.

Among them, the independent journalist stands out Yeris Curbelo Aguileraconvicted by the court of the municipality Niceto Pérez, in Guantanamo, two years of deprivation of liberty for what they have denounced as a manufactured crime, after this reporter gave coverage to the protests in Caimanera, Guantanamo.

Curbelo revealed the aggressions and violence against protesters, committed by state security agents.

The independent writer and journalist José Gabriel Barrenechea, collaborator of the digital platform 14ymediowas arrested on November 8, 2024 and imprisoned in the prison the slope of Santa Clara, after making public his questions to the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel.

«I keep locked up to silence my criticisms, in my analysis and publications, government management and the real possibilities of the Cuban socio-political system to get the country out of the crisis in which it is mired,» he wrote from prison.

Another reporter from the newspaper 14ymedio, Yadiel Hernándezhe was arrested while investigating a case of drug trafficking at a school in Matanzas. He currently remains in the combined prison of the South, of that province, facing propaganda charges against the constitutional order.

In prison and sentenced to 15 years in jail she is also the young woman Mayelín Rodríguez Pradoknown in networks such as the Chamaca del Chamaco.

Thanks to his work as a citizen journalist, from his social networks he transmitted police repression to the popular protests of Nuevitas, in Camagüey, in 2022.

She was accused of «continuous enemy propaganda» and «sedition» and received the highest penalty among the protesters who were prosecuted for that cause.

Also the independent journalist Jorge Bello Domínguezwith a 15 -year sentence for several crimes related to their participation in the demonstration of July 11, 2021 in Güira de Mamena, province of Artemisa.

During his imprisonment in the east combined, Bello Domínguez has remained informing about abuses and violations of the rights of inmates in that maximum security prison in Havana.

On Friday the International Organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) criticized the restrictions to Freedom of the press in the world And he pointed out, once again, Cuba among the nations where there are fewer freedoms in this regard.

«Since 2021, the space of freedom created by a brief» spring «of independent media online has been gradually closed, and repression of journalists has intensified,» says the report.

The United Nations Organization dedicated World Press Freedom Day this 2025 to evaluate how artificial intelligence affects press freedom, free movement of information, the independence of the media and the worldwide objective of guaranteeing access to information and protecting fundamental freedoms.