Her crime consisted of publishing photos of herself wrapped in the Cuban flag to demand the release of the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.
14ymedio, 8 December 2025 — Camagüeyan activist Aniette González García was released from prison on Saturday after serving her full three-year sentence for the crime of “insulting national symbols.” Her release was announced by journalist José Luis Tan Estrada at an event held in Mexico in support of María Corina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
González García was arrested in March 2023 for posting photos on Facebook of herself wrapped in the Cuban flag in support of a campaign for the release of artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement, who is also imprisoned for, among other things, the same crime as her. The activist was held in the Kilo 5 women’s prison in Camagüey for almost a year awaiting trial, until her sentence was handed down in February 2024.
In the ruling, she not only received a three-year prison sentence, but was also stripped of her right to vote. Furthermore, as a formality, she was barred from holding any positions in entities related to the Cuban economy and politics during her imprisonment, and will be considered a repeat offender before being granted any benefits or mitigating circumstances.
She will be considered a “repeat offender” before being granted any benefits or mitigating circumstances.
Following the conviction—the prosecution had originally sought up to four years in prison—various legal appeals were filed, all of which were rejected by the court. Her family filed a petition for habeas corpus, an appeal, a motion to revoke the pretrial detention order, a motion to recuse the prosecutor, and an appeal of the verdict, but all were unsuccessful.
Following her release, several organizations celebrated the news and criticized the harshness of the authorities’ actions. “Her case exemplifies the criminalization of dissent and the use of the penal system to punish expressions protected by the right to freedom of thought and expression,” stated the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), which also condemned “the arbitrary nature of her detention and the harassment she suffered in prison.”
The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights, based in Madrid, indicated that González’s case “remains a clear example of how the regime uses the penal system to punish peaceful expressions and repress any critical gesture,” and added that her release “does not erase the injustice committed nor the conditions in which she was detained, denounced even by international organizations.”
Her release “does not erase the injustice committed nor the conditions in which she was detained”
The irregularities in the process led the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to address the case in May of last year, issuing precautionary measures in favor of the activist. In its resolution, the IACHR considered it “especially serious” that Aniette González lacked access to medical services “for the diagnosis of the bleeding she suffers,” and warned of the “serious and urgent situation, given that her rights to life, personal integrity, and health face a risk of irreparable harm.”
She also denounced the mistreatment she suffered at the hands of prison authorities and State Security, including insults, being confined in a cell “flooded with water, damp, with little light and ventilation,” preventing her from resting by taking away “the necessary elements for it,” controlling her clothing, giving her little food and in poor condition, or interrogating her in rooms “with low temperatures, at any time of day.”
According to the most recent report by Prisoners Defenders (PD), there are a total of 1,179 political prisoners on the island, 35 of whom are minors—the minimum age of criminal responsibility in Cuba is 16. Of these, 29 are serving sentences and six are being prosecuted under “precautionary measures without any judicial oversight.”
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