Cuban independent artist Nando Obdc has been sentenced to five years in prison

The independent Cuban artist Fernando Almenares Rivera, known artistically as Nando Obdc, was sentenced to five years in prison for the alleged crime of "propaganda against the constitutional order", in a process that independent organizations describe as political, arbitrary, and lacking legal guarantees.

The sentence was publicly denounced by the Cuban Youth Dialogue Table, which claimed that the trial held on November 26, 2025 was a “farce” and that the ruling confirms the use of the judicial system as a tool for punishing freedom of expression and critical art.

According to the judicial document itself, the sanction is based on the fact that the artist "painted phrases with counter-revolutionary content" in August 2024 and placed them along a stretch of the Monumental Highway in Havana, an action of a symbolic nature that the court deemed a criminal offense.

The ruling goes further and openly criminalizes dissent by stating that Almenares "meets with individuals opposed to the revolutionary process," despite explicitly acknowledging that he has no criminal record, a formulation that highlights the ideological nature of the conviction.

In light of this ruling, the Cuban Youth Dialogue Table demanded that the judges who signed the sentence —Kenia Reyes Lara (rapporteur), Jesús Pérez Benavides, Patricia González Vera, Gil Amado Payne Hernández, and Simón Mario Reyes Balmaceda— be included in the lists of repressors for their involvement in acts of political persecution.

Nando Obdc, 35 years old, was arrested on December 31, 2024, at his home in the municipality of La Lisa, without prior notice or a court order.

At the end of July 2025, the artist declared a hunger strike while remaining incommunicado in a prison in Güines, Mayabeque, as a form of protest against his prolonged imprisonment without a fair trial. In August, the Dialogue Table reported that he remained incarcerated without clear evidence or direct connection to the charges against him.

The case of Nando Obdc adds to a long list of artists, activists, and Cuban citizens imprisoned for exercising their right to express themselves, in a context of increasing criminalization of critical thought on the Island.

Independent organizations reiterated their demand for the immediate freedom of the artist and warned that art is not a crime, even—especially—under a regime that punishes creativity when it challenges power.