The political prisoner Julián Manuel Mazola Beltrán has been detained for 27 days in a cell under the control of State Security, without the Cuban regime presenting any evidence against him, according to allegations from the organization Defensa Cuba Decide and the ICLEP reported by Infobae.
Mazola, originally from San Antonio de los Baños (Artemisa), was detained on October 9 after attending a summons from a State Security agent. He was then taken to his own home for a search and was subsequently transferred to a police unit.
Six days later, on October 15, it was reported that the Prosecutor's Office had opened a criminal case against him for "propaganda against the constitutional order," as defined in Article 124 of the Cuban Penal Code, which stipulates penalties ranging from three to ten years in prison.
His family visited him on Tuesday and found him in a concerning state of health: he has experienced fainting spells, which he attributes to low blood pressure, exacerbated by the spoiled food he receives in his cell that prevents him from eating normally.
The only response from the authorities to that situation was to authorize the delivery of a package of cookies to the guard officer, as well as to allow family visits on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Cuba Decide Defense questioned that response, demanded proper medical attention, and insisted that the visit from their lawyer, scheduled for this Friday, be conducted fully and without restrictions. The instructor in charge of the case was not present when the family went to see him.
Meanwhile, the Prosecutor's Office ordered a technical examination of the seized cell phone on the day of the arrest. The results are expected this Saturday. "Almost a month later, the regime still has not presented any evidence and keeps Julián imprisoned while they review his phone for something that justifies incarcerating him," stated Defensa CD in their statement.
The case takes on an additional dimension because Mazola is a beneficiary of precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), granted in June 2024, which urge the Cuban state to protect him from threats and intimidation. CD Defense and ICLEP believe that the detention without evidence, the conditions of food, and the fainting spells constitute a potential violation of those measures.
This is not the first time Mazola has faced the repression of the regime. He was 21 years old when he was arrested during the protests of July 11th in San Antonio de los Baños, one of the locations where the largest popular demonstrations in Cuba in decades began.
The Prosecutor's Office then requested 12 years in prison; the Provincial Court of Artemisa sentenced him to five years in March 2022 and rejected his appeal two months later. During that initial detention in Guanajay, activists reported beatings, disciplinary cells, and restrictions on communicating with his family. He served his sentence and was released in 2025.
His new arrest is part of a documented pattern of re-incarceration of 11J detainees. Denis Hernández Ramírez, Yoan de la Cruz, Andy García Lorenzo, and Alexander Díaz Rodríguez —the latter suffering from cancer— were re-arrested between March and October of this year under similar circumstances.
The charge of "propaganda against the constitutional order" was also brought this week against journalist Yoani Sánchez, detained for over nine hours before being released, highlighting the systematic use of this legal notion to punish dissent and freedom of expression in Cuba.
According to Prisoners Defenders, Cuba had 1,356 political prisoners as of October 7, 2026, while Justicia 11J counted 338 individuals still imprisoned for their involvement in the protests of July 2021.
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