Two Cuban activists sentenced to prison for "propaganda against the constitutional order"

Opponents José Antonio Pompa López and Lázaro Mendoza García were sent to prison after being detained for months at Villa Marista, the headquarters of State Security in Havana, accused of the crime of "propaganda against the constitutional order."

The Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Havana imposed the precautionary measure of provisional detention on both dissidents, reported Martí Noticias, based on testimonies from family members of the detained.

"My husband had already been in Villa Marista for three months and one week, and he called me... that he was now at Combinado del Este," reported Suarmi Hernández Vilar, wife of Pompa, to the news portal.

Hernández stated that her husband is imprisoned with Mendoza and that both are being charged with the crime of "'propaganda against the constitutional order,' for a video in which they appear throwing proclamations that was never uploaded to social media; it was only stored on the computer."

Pompa was arrested on April 26, near his home in Old Havana, and Mendoza in mid-June, after appearing for a summons at Villa Marista.

According to Martí Noticias, neither the police nor the judicial authorities have provided any documents to the accused so far.

The report adds that Daniel Alfaro, who was arrested on March 13, is also in provisional custody for the same reason.

The three activists are under criminal investigation for "other crimes against state security," which includes "propaganda against the constitutional order."

For this crime, the Cuban Penal Code, approved in May 2022, sentences those who "incite against social order, international solidarity, or the socialist state recognized in the Constitution of the Republic, through oral or written propaganda or in any other form" to between three and 10 years in prison. The charge also applies to Cubans who "create, distribute, or possess propaganda of the aforementioned nature."

Family and friends of the activists told Martí Noticias that, during the investigation they are conducting, the authorities are seeking evidence to prove their affiliation with the Cuba Primero movement, based in Miami.

In January of this year, Pompa hung a sign on the balcony of his house in protest of being fired from his workplace due to his political activism. The member of the independent Coalition of Cuban Self-Employed Workers (C3) stated that he was fired from the pizzeria where he worked on the orders of State Security.

The activist is the main breadwinner for his family, which consists of his wife and two children, a boy who was then eight years old and a two-month-old baby.

In 2020, Pompa was imprisoned and was one of the seven political prisoners whose immediate release was demanded by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

For his part, Mendoza, after a first interrogation by State Security in June, reported to Martí Noticias: "They want to lock me up because they showed me a video of people shouting slogans in Centro Habana and they say that one of the voices is El Bambi (José Antonio Pompa) and the other one is me, based on the voice. I denied it, but they told me to come back tomorrow."

Later, his sister Yusel Mendoza García confirmed that he had been arrested in Villa Marista accused of “propaganda against the constitutional order.”