Cuba closed July 2026 with 1,327 political prisoners, the highest number ever documented by the organization Prisoners Defenders (PD), which reported 36 new additions to its list during the month, 15 of which were directly linked to citizen protests.
The case that has generated the most outrage is that of Alex Javier Hernández González, a 13-year-old detained on July 22 without an arrest warrant in Santiago de las Vegas, Boyeros, Havana, following the protests against blackouts.
According to his mother’s report, four uniformed police officers struck the teenager on the head, neck, and back while he pleaded, "Don't hit me anymore, I'm just a kid."
The agents also prevented the medical certificate for the injuries from being issued, arguing that a signature was missing, and they attempted to attribute the injuries to the protesters themselves, a claim that the minor refuted by directly pointing to the uniformed officers as responsible.
Alex Javier remains incarcerated at "El Combinadito," a juvenile detention center managed by the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) in Guanabacoa, with no charges against him having been made public.
The repression in July intensified around the fifth anniversary of the protests on July 11, 2021, and did not diminish after that date; instead, it deepened, with arrests targeting protesters, artists, journalists, digital activists, and even individuals who showed solidarity with prisoners.
Two independent musicians, Pedro Ernesto Farías (“El Feno”) and Rolando Almenteros (“El Bohemio”), were violently arrested on July 7 in the Santos Suárez neighborhood for recording a protest video against blackouts; Rolando was beaten during the arrest and remains incommunicado at the El Vivac detention center.
That same day, the activist Lumey Guzmán from Alamar was detained after responding to a summons from State Security; PD believes that her initial concealment amounts to a short-term enforced disappearance, a pattern that the United Nations has documented in Cuba.
The repression reached the point of imprisoning Aniley Martínez Ramírez for bringing food to the political prisoner Lizandra Góngora Espinosa, who is serving a 14-year sentence on the Isle of Youth, suffers from sickle cell anemia, and was held in a punishment cell in July.
Of the 1,327 documented prisoners, 459 suffer from serious medical conditions, 150 are women, and 41 were detained while being minors; in the last 12 months, the list has added 275 new cases, averaging 23 per month.
The regime also upheld sentences against individuals who had previously been acquitted: Ana Ibis Tristá Padilla must serve 14 years in prison and Jarol Varona Agüero, 13 years, despite both having been declared innocent due to lack of evidence in an earlier trial; the Supreme People's Court based the sentences solely on the testimonies of Counterintelligence officers.
From prison, Ana Ibis communicated with PD to declare her innocence and affirm that the judges who acquitted her were pressured by State Security: "We are not dead, and certainly not silent," she said.
To direct repression is added the systematic use of forced expatriation: Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was deported to the United States on July 18, nine days after fully serving his five-year sentence, without being allowed to remain in Cuba; Maykel Osorbo was transferred without notice to the maximum-security prison in Guanajay and remained missing for almost 48 hours, while the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommended that his nine-year sentence be annulled.
Since August 2021 until the end of July 2026, the Cuban regime has accumulated 2,148 political prisoners in just five years, according to documentation from Prisoners Defenders.
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