The Cuban poet and improviser Juan Carlos García Guridi published a tenth dedicated to Anna Bensi and her mother, Caridad Silvente Laffita, just hours after the Municipal People's Court of East Havana sentenced them to two years of restricted freedom each.
The poem calls for justice for the two women and elevates the case to a collective dimension: "Anna Bensi and Caridad / for their abundant blood / deserve nothing less / than justice and freedom. / Dignity cannot / fall into a gray lethargy; / it needs at its root / of murky dawns, / more than that of two women, / the freedom of a country."
The sentence was handed down on Thursday before Judge Zamira Marrero Morgado —noted by activists for her involvement in cases related to the trials of July 11, 2021— and was based on Article 393 of the Cuban Penal Code, which defines “acts against personal and family privacy.” The organization Cubalex had warned that this law protects private life, not the actions of a state agent, and that its application in this case criminalizes civic oversight.
The origin of the case dates back to March 2026, when MININT sub-official Yoel Leodán Rabaza Ramos visited the home of both in Alamar to deliver a citation from State Security. Mother and daughter recorded the encounter and shared the footage. In the video itself, the agent acknowledged that State Security had sent him to issue the citation. The case was initially filed away and reopened in July following a complaint from the agent himself.
The trial was marked by a large police operation: only one defense witness was allowed to enter the courtroom, while the evangelical pastor known as the "Herald of Christ" and activist David Espinosa Martínez were detained when they attempted to attend. The official statement claimed that the video revealed the address of the agent's home, but that claim contradicts what the images show: the ID visible in the recording only displays the name, case number, category, physical characteristics, and expiration date.
At the courthouse, Anna Bensi —whose legal name is Ana Sofía Benítez Silvente, 21 years old— stated: "My mother and I were found guilty of the crime we were being accused of, an alleged crime." She added that "none of us are criminals" and called for "Cuba to be free."
The sentence unleashed a broad wave of solidarity. The Cuban-American congressmen Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar, and Carlos A. Giménez called for the unconditional release of both; Salazar described the proceedings as "a desperate act of a dying dictatorship trying to intimidate and silence the Cuban people." The United States Embassy in Havana summarized its position with the phrase "Thinking differently is not a crime", while the Under Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Juan Pablo Segura, wrote on X that "the cowardice of the Cuban regime knows no bounds."
The poem by García Guridi —born in Batabanó, Mayabeque, in 1968 and an active researcher of the Cuban décima— adds to a series of verses of denunciation published throughout 2026, including “Sin más partido,” written in defense of political prisoner José Gabriel Barrenechea, and “LUCHA,” in which he labeled the Cuban government as “the Judas of the government.”
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