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The Crimes Against State Security Court of the Provincial People's Tribunal of Havana sentenced Leonard Richard González Alfonso, a 33-year-old visual artist and musician, to seven years in prison for painting posters against the regime on the walls of the Regla municipality in the Cuban capital during the early morning of June 20, 2025.
In another process where the Cuban regime uses the judicial system as a tool of repression, González Alfonso was sentenced this Wednesday for the alleged crimes of propaganda against the constitutional order and threats, the latter for reportedly having insulted a citizen who discovered him during the events and left before the situation escalated, according to the ruling of case 35/2025, which was accessed by the news agency EFE.
According to the information, the court found it proven that the accused, along with another unidentified individual, had carried out the graffiti with the phrases "How long?", "How long? They are killing us", "How long, Cuba?" and "How long? Justice Cuba."
The sentence was denounced by the NGO Prisoners Defenders, which classified it as an example of the criminalization of expression. "There was no violence. There were no serious injuries. Just words of protest regarding the crisis the country is facing," it emphasized.
The court described the posters as "announcements against the Government and the socialist system" and noted that they expressed "total disagreement with the energy situation the country is facing." The graffiti occurred amid a energy crisis plaguing the island, with power outages lasting up to 20 hours daily across the country and generation deficits exceeding 2,000 megawatts. The prosecution had requested eight years in prison.
The trial took place on February 18, after González Alfonso had spent more than seven months in provisional detention, including over twenty days held at Villa Marista, the main headquarters of State Security.
The González Alfonso family reported that the judge "acted like a heartless person, belittling the lawyer's defense and concluding that this was not about an artist, but about the revolution."
González Alfonso suffers from severe depression and personality disorder. His family members report that he is not receiving the medications he needs while in prison. He has attempted to take his own life three times, twice during a previous imprisonment in 2018, when he was sentenced to five years for defending a minor who was beaten by a police officer. While serving that sentence, he went on a hunger strike that caused him acute pancreatitis.
At the beginning of this month, in an interview with Hypermedia Magazine, his aunt Yanela Alfonso stated: "Leonard hopes he won't have to spend eight years locked up. But we are very scared because we know that very tough situations will come if that happens. We have lived through it already. And it is very painful because my nephew is a very kind boy."
González Alfonso, born in Regla and father of a child, has a documented artistic career: he participated in the XII National Visual Arts Salon Fayad Jamís in 2012, presented the solo exhibition "Metamorfloris Humanus Natura" at the Miramar Trade Center in 2016, and won second place in a literary competition in 2020.
Your case has been included in the Campaign of Imprisoned Artists by the Cultural Rights Observatory, which documents 31 politically sentenced artists in Cuba.
Prisoners Defenders, based in Madrid, warned that "in Cuba, asking a question is judged as a crime." The organization recorded a total of 1,214 political prisoners in Cuba at the end of February, setting a new historical record. Since the protests of July 11, 2021, 1,981 people have been deprived of their freedom for political reasons on the island.
In a statement on social media, the NGO summarized the implications of González Alfonso's sentence: "This ruling confirms a pattern: in Cuba, questioning reality is treated as a crime against the State. Today, not only is Leonard condemned. A message is sent to all Cubans."
In December 2025, a court in Havana , known as Nando OBDC, to five years in prison for hanging four banners demanding "changes now."
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