The United States government condemned this Wednesday the situation of the Cuban fighter Javier "Spiderman" Martín Gutiérrez, a political prisoner who has been incarcerated since April without the regime having filed formal charges against him.
The Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs published an official poster on X with its image and the caption "Unjustly detained," stating that his arrest is entirely without legal basis.
"In April, Javier 'Spiderman' Martín Gutiérrez, champion of mixed martial arts from the Cuban Mixed Martial Arts League, was arrested for peacefully expressing himself from the balcony of his home regarding the unjust conditions faced by the Cuban people at the hands of the corrupt communist regime in Cuba. Months later, the regime has still not brought any charges against him, which shows that his detention is entirely unfounded," stated the U.S. agency.
Martín Gutiérrez, 34 years old and a three-time MMA champion in Cuba, was arrested on April 24 in the Havana municipality of Marianao while returning from a training session.
Agents in plain clothes intercepted him, beat him, and threw him to the ground without any resistance, before taking him away in a black vehicle.
The arrest occurred after nine days of live broadcasts from the balcony of his home on 31st Avenue in Havana, during which he denounced the prolonged blackouts, the scarcity of food and medicine, and the opulence of the ruling elite.
Phrases like "I'm not crazy, I'm tired" and "They'll have to kill me to shut me up" went viral on social media. After his arrest, the athlete was detained in Villa Marista, the headquarters of State Security, where he remained for almost a month.
The authorities attempted to subject him to a psychiatric evaluation to delegitimize his protests, but the examination ruled out any mental disorder. In a handwritten letter circulated by Cubalex, the fighter reported beatings and hunger during that imprisonment.
At the end of May, he was transferred without prior notice to the Combinado del Este, a maximum-security prison in Havana.
His wife Alisandra Cuza and his mother Lourdes Gutiérrez have reported that he is experiencing episodes of fever and diarrhea, and that access to potable water in the prison is so limited that the family must bring him water and food with every visit.
The regime formally accuses him of contempt and disruption of public order, charges that Spider-Man himself denies.
"I am not a potential criminal to be in a maximum-security prison, especially for the crime of which I am accused, which is supposedly contempt and public disorder. That charge is going to fall apart," he stated in an audio recorded from Combinado del Este at the end of July.
The prosecutor's office of the Playa municipality also rejected the request for a change of precautionary measure submitted by his defense and notified the rejection verbally, without providing any written documentation.
The head of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, Mike Hammer, visited the athlete's wife in June to express U.S. support for the case.
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