Prisoners Defenders documents 36 new additions to its list and denounces the increase in arrests following the blackout protests
14ymedio, Havana, August 12, 2026 / The intensification of repression in Cuba has resulted in a new record number of political prisoners in July. According to the most recent report from the organization Prisoners Defenders (PD), 1,327 people are currently imprisoned in Cuba for political reasons, including Alex Javier Hernández González, a 13-year-old minor.
“Repression reaches a child beaten and imprisoned,” PD reports in a publication this Wednesday. The minor was detained without an arrest warrant or judicial supervision on July 22nd following protests in Santiago de Las Vegas, Boyeros, Havana. According to his mother, the teenager was walking along the road connecting that town to Wajay, near the Mulgoba neighborhood, when police officers, in response to the protests, began chasing and arresting people in the area.
Alex Javier “was found observing what was happening and tried to get away when he noticed the presence of the agents, but he was quickly caught. His mother reported that four uniformed police officers hit him on the head, neck, and back. During the assault, the minor pleaded, ‘Don’t hit me anymore, I’m a boy.’ When she was later able to see him, the woman confirmed his injuries and found her son crying and asking her to call his father,” the NGO stated.
After his arrest, he was taken to the Calabazar police station. Although he was supposed to be taken to a clinic to have a medical certificate issued documenting his injuries, the police suspended his transfer, claiming that “a signature was missing.” “At the same time, they tried to blame the protesters for the beating, a version that the minor himself contradicted by identifying four uniformed police officers as the perpetrators of the assault,” PD points out.
“They tried to blame the protesters for the beatings, a version that the minor himself contradicted by identifying four uniformed police officers as the perpetrators of the attack.”
For now, Alex Javier remains in El Combinadito, a juvenile detention center run by the Ministry of the Interior in Guanabacoa. His arrest occurred without a warrant or any judicial oversight, and the charges against him and the authorities’ decision regarding his situation are not publicly known.
The minor was one of 36 new additions to the Prisoners Defenders list, 15 of them linked to protests, in a month marked by the fifth anniversary of the mass Island-wide protests of 11 July 2021. Of those cases, 13 were concentrated in the east and east-central parts of the country, where prolonged blackouts,the lack of water, and the collapse of other essential services have created fertile ground for the population to stage new pot-banging protests [cacerolazos] and demonstrations.
The detentions, according to the organization, affect a broad mosaic of society: protesters, artists, journalists, activists, and people who were simply performing acts of solidarity.
Prisoners Defenders also reported that the persecution “was not limited to those who took to the streets. Two artists were arrested for staging and recording a performance against the blackouts; other activists were imprisoned for denouncing the crisis and calling for demonstrations, and digital creators were investigated for disseminating critical content.”
In addition, patterns of malnutrition, torture, and deprivation of medical care continue to be observed among those who remain imprisoned: 459 political prisoners suffer from serious medical conditions, the Madrid-based organization warned.
Patterns of malnutrition, torture, and denial of medical care continue to be observed among those who remain imprisoned.
The report also highlights the recent enactment of Decree 160/2026, which prohibits periodical publications and information activity by all non-state economic actors, legally closing any loopholes for the independent press, which is already persecuted in practice.
The document emphasizes the increasingly frequent use of forced expatriation. Examples include the cases of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, deported after serving his full sentence; Yosvany Rosell García Caso, whom the prison administration informed would be “sent out of Cuba,” a fact his family denounces as a violation of his right to remain in the country; and Roilán Álvarez Rensoler, whose release depends on his family buying him a ticket to leave Cuba.
“Leaving the country is presented as the only alternative to regaining freedom,” notes Prisoners Defenders. Exile, the report emphasizes, “adds uprooting, family separation, and the silencing of a critical voice within the national territory.”
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