The political prisoner from Holguín, Yosvany Rosell García Caso, sentenced to 15 years in prison for participating in the protests on July 11, 2021, categorically rejected the Cuban regime's offer to release him in exchange for leaving the country.
This was reported on Tuesday by his wife, Mailin Rodríguez Sánchez, in a video posted on Facebook that captures the message he conveyed to her during their weekly phone call.
According to Mailin, the prison authorities prevented her husband from calling at the usual time—9 in the morning—and only allowed him to communicate at 11, specifically to inform him of his exile status.
"They wouldn’t let him call, so that he wouldn’t inform me that he had been taken out to be told that he was going to be exiled and sent out of Cuba, a place he absolutely refuses to leave," the woman explained.
The message that Yosvany sent through his wife was striking: "Why leave your homeland, why abandon it if in the end, it's all the communists who have destroyed this homeland that have to go?"
Mailin Rodríguez Sánchez publicly supported her husband's decision and expanded her complaint with her own words: "Let them leave, we have no reason to go. We want Cuba to be great, prosperous, and for our children to have a good future, just like they do in other parts of the world."
The family concluded their stance with a statement of principles: "We refuse to leave Cuba. God, homeland, life, and freedom."
The case of Yosvany Rosell has a long history of complaints. In October 2025, he began a hunger strike that lasted over 39 days, reaching a critical state with reports of renal failure, which necessitated his transfer to a ward for inmates in a hospital in Holguín.
On January 26, 2026, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures in his favor —case file MC-1242-25—, demanding that the Cuban state protect his life, integrity, and access to appropriate medical care.
The condition imposed on Yosvany is not an isolated case. The Cuban regime has systematically applied the mechanism that UN special rapporteurs denounced in March 2026 as the model of "prison or exile".
Félix Navarro and his daughter Saylí Navarro rejected a similar proposal in May 2026, while Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was released in July and sent into exile in the United States.
According to Prisoners Defenders, Cuba had 1,306 political prisoners as of July 9, 2026, including 40 minors. Human Rights Watch noted that the mass releases announced by the regime in 2026 did not decrease this number, as they deliberately excluded political prisoners.
Mailin Rodríguez Sánchez concluded her statement with a phrase that encapsulates the stance of the entire family: "Today she is enduring a genocide. A slow death. Every Cuban is suffering right now. But we want her free. And we want her strong."
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