The ’14ymedio’ contributor was briefly released from prison to attend Zoila Chávez’s wake.
14ymedio, Havana, 5 May 2025 — Cuban authorities only allowed journalist and political prisoner José Gabriel Barrenechea to visit his mother after she had died. According to what family sources confirmed to 14ymedio, the journalist was taken from the prison to Zoila Esther Chávez’s wake, where he was allowed to remain for an hour and a half.
A family member who asked to remain anonymous said Barrenechea was “quite calm” because he had been “prepared a bit by phone.” The funeral for the journalist’s mother was held this Monday at 10:00 a.m.
Zoila died this Sunday, at the age of 84, in Encrucijada, Villa Clara. The woman had asked on several occasions to see her son, who was arrested in November 2024 and accused of public disorder. The most recent and significant request came recently, when, already aware of the seriousness of her health—she had metastatic bladder cancer—she recorded a video in which she begged, on the verge of tears, to be allowed to see her son one last time.
“Why won’t they release my son?” the woman asked in the heartbreaking video. “What has he done to make them lock him up, to make them keep him and me in this ordeal, in this terror I carry inside my heart? How long will they keep a mother suffering like this? Please, everyone join me and help me pray for my son.” Although there was a strong online outcry in support of her demand, the regime refused to grant Barrenechea’s release.
“The refusal to allow a final farewell between mother and son, an elementary gesture of humanity, reflects a profound ethical degeneration of the Cuban judicial and police system.”
“The refusal to allow a final farewell between mother and son, an elementary gesture of humanity, reflects a profound ethical degeneration of the Cuban judicial and police system.”
Yurianis Speck Rosillo, head of the La Pendiente prison where the reporter is awaiting trial, has been included on the Cuban Human Rights Foundation’s list of repressors for carrying out this decision.
“With sadness we received the death of Zoila Chávez, mother of political prisoner José Gabriel Barrenechea. Zoila died hoping to be reunited with her son, who had been deprived of his liberty since November 2024,” the organization Civil Rights Defenders said. In a tweet published Monday, they expressed their solidarity with the family and demanded the reporter’s release.
José Gabriel Barrenechea was arrested for joining spontaneous demonstrations that erupted on November 7 in Encrucijada. Three days later, his family had no news of his whereabouts, after he was being held at the Santa Clara Police Investigation Unit, where he was interrogated.
Initially, authorities attempted to charge him with sedition, but the journalist himself reported that they had dropped the charge and instead charged him with “public disorder,” a less serious offense with criminal consequences, although it can carry up to three years in prison, provided no aggravating factors are added.
More than twenty organizations signed a petition calling for the release of Barrenechea and Yadiel Hernández, also a contributor to 14ymedio, who was finally released from prison without charges on Monday, April 28.
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