From the Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey, political prisoner Virgilio Mantilla Arango sent a message of resistance this Saturday on the fifth anniversary of the protests of July 11, 2021, disseminated by the Cuban Observatory of Cultural Rights (ODC-Cuba) as part of the #ArtistasPresos campaign.
In the video, Mantilla dismisses the accusations against him as a means to intimidate and reaffirms his commitment to democracy regardless of the sentence imposed on him.
“The accusation made is a lie, but I cannot allow myself to engage with it because these accusations, like all the times before, are intended to bring one into a state of depression, a fallen state, a state of sadness. It doesn’t keep me up at night because what’s more important to me is to live my feelings, to live my emotions, to live my life,” stated the activist from prison.
The message arrives as the Camagüey Prosecutor's Office requests 10 years in prison for Mantilla for posting a video on Facebook from a cemetery in which he held the Cuban regime responsible for the crisis on the island.
“Whether it's 10 or 15, it doesn't matter. I'm going to keep thinking the same way, darling, because that’s my emotion, that’s my life. I think like this, and I deserve respect for being who I am, for my nature. That is my dignity,” he stated.
Mantilla, 54 years old and founder of the Camagüeyan Unity for Human Rights organization, has accumulated at least eight political arrests throughout his life as an activist.
He was arrested for the first time in December 2020 and sentenced to seven months in the maximum-security prison Kilo 8. Released on July 4, 2021, he was re-arrested just 20 days later in the context of the mass detentions on July 11, and sentenced to three years and three months for "property damage."
After fully serving that sentence under conditions described as inhumane—without a sheet to sleep on, without medication, and with a shortage of food—he was released on August 18, 2025.
Freedom lasted only two months: on October 17, 2025, he was arrested again in the municipality of Florida, Camagüey, accused of "propaganda against the constitutional order."
The OCDH initially reported the case as a forced disappearance before confirming that he was detained in Kilo 7, where he remains in provisional custody without a final sentence.
In March 2026, Mantilla reported from prison a lack of medications to treat a herniated disc and bone and circulatory diseases, as well as a shortage of food and inability to contact his family.
In the face of a potential sentence of one or two decades, the activist stands firm: "The love I feel for freedom is much stronger than death, it's my fear of death, and I will face those 10, 15, 20 years with dignity. I will continue to be myself. That’s how I think; I love democracy."
His case is part of a broader context of sustained repression: according to ODC-Cuba, at least 14 Cuban artists remain incarcerated for political reasons as of July 2026, twelve of whom were detained following the protests of July 11th, while Prisoners Defenders estimated in April 2025 that Cuba holds at least 1,066 political prisoners in total.
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