Doris Santiesteban Batista, wife of Ernesto Ricardo Medina, one of the founders of the independent audiovisual project El4tico, posted a heartbreaking message on Facebook this Saturday marking 218 days since her husband's detention, who has been imprisoned in Holguín since February 6, 2026.
The message, succinctly titled "218 days," recounts the family's visit to the prison that day and the moment when their four-year-old daughter Emma burst into tears while saying goodbye to her father.
"I accept feeling bad because I'm an adult and I know how things are, but seeing my daughter cry because she has to say goodbye to her dad, whom she sees every 15 days for just two hours, no, that’s not acceptable," wrote Doris.
The mother also described an episode that deeply impacted her: the girl watched a movie in which a father abandons his daughter and remarked aloud, "Look, my dad abandoned me too."
"I cannot accept that my four-year-old daughter, who still doesn’t understand why her father is in prison, watches a movie where a father leaves his daughter and she says that," Doris wrote, before asking with distress: "How long will this last?"
Ernesto Ricardo Medina and Kamil Zayas Pérez, the founders of El4tico, an audiovisual project focused on sociopolitical critique that emerged in Holguín in 2024, were arrested by State Security during an operation at their homes. During the arrest, agents confiscated their computers, phones, cameras, and other work equipment.
The Holguín Prosecutor's Office accuses them of "propaganda against the constitutional order" and "incitement to commit a crime," charges that could carry up to nine years in prison.
Both remain in provisional detention without any prosecution request or trial date set. The organization Cubalex denounced this situation as a blatant violation of due process and demanded their immediate release.
The case has generated sustained international pressure. The United States State Department issued a statement merely three days after the arrest. In April, the head of the U.S. Embassy mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, met with Doris Santiesteban to learn about the situation firsthand. As six months of detention were completed, the U.S. Embassy publicly demanded the immediate release of the two young individuals.
Last week, marking seven months of imprisonment, human rights organizations reiterated that the founders of El4tico continued without trial or formal charges.
Doris has been the public voice of the family from day one. In every message, she has placed Emma at the center of the narrative, serving as a testament to the harm that arbitrary detention inflicts beyond the prisoners themselves.
In his post this Saturday, he strongly defended the detainees: "They are cultured young people, from their homes, and more intelligent than many who claim to be."
And he closed with a question that encapsulates the weight of these 218 days: "They say that children are the hope of the world, now tell me what hope my daughter is going to have when she grows up and understands why her father is really in prison."
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